


it takes a lonely heart to disappear

by nirav



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-02
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-07-24 01:53:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16171187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: an unrepentantly inaccurate fbi au, per request





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [smallandsundry](https://smallandsundry.tumblr.com/) wanted a vaguely fast and furiousish au with motorcycles, and a vaguely fast and furiousish au with motorcycles she shall receive

The call comes on a Saturday, when no one at work is technically supposed to be calling her because Saturdays are family days and off limits.  She picks up the phone anyways, irritation clipping her voice, and the voice on the other side of the phone wavers.

“I know it’s the weekend, I’m sorry--”

“You have about forty seconds before my kid is here,” Sam says shortly.  “Talk fast.”

“We finished running through the accounts from the warrants and didn’t find anything on the wire transfers,” he rushes out.  “But we did find a lead.”

“What?”

“That expense you flagged from 2009, the helicopter,” he says.  “It ran through a few shell companies, but we tracked it down as for a transport from Baja to the Cedars Sinai trauma center in LA, with a doctor on board.  We haven’t tracked the doctor down, but we have the landing time at Cedars.”

“Really,” Sam murmurs.  She pauses and waves to Ruby, who’s hugging her teacher goodbye.  “Get the warrant for Cedars. I’ll dig into it on Monday.”

She hangs up before his _“Yes ma’am”_ has finished, shoving her phone into her pocket and kneeling down to catch the flying hug from her daughter.  “Hey there, stinky,” she says with a grin. “How was it?”

“The _best_!” Ruby says, bouncing on the balls of her feet with the energy only a third grader could have.  “Miss K said I’m a natural!”

“Did she now,” Sam says, standing with a groan and a hand on Ruby’s head.  “Ew, helmet hair.” She glances over towards the instructors on the other side of the enormous field, busy packing away the child-sized helmets into a trailer, and grabs for Ruby’s hand. “Come on, kiddo, let’s go get you cleaned up.”

“This was the best idea ever.”  Ruby hops up into the passenger seat, pulling at her seatbelt excitedly.  “Do you think I can get my own--”

“Rubes, baby, you know the deal,” Sam says, one eyebrow tilting up.  “Remember?”

“Six months,” Ruby mumbles.  “And then we’ll talk about getting my own bike.”

“Six months,” Sam says with a nod.  She pulls out of the parking area, leaving a cloud of dust behind them.  “And then we’ll discuss getting you one.” She pokes at Ruby’s matted hair with one finger.  “Most kids want to play soccer or take karate, you know.”

“I’m just special,” Ruby says primly.

“You sure are,” Sam says, smiling over at her before merging onto the highway.  “Now, it’s Saturday, which means it’s movie night. What are we watching?”

Ruby launches into a description of whatever latest Disney concoction it is she wants to watch, and Sam settles in for the drive back into the city limits, mind half on her daughter and half on her upcoming visit to Cedars for work.

 

* * *

 

“Ms. Arias, hello, welcome to Cedars Sinai!” The hospital CEO offers his hand and a glib smile.  “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Water?”

“It’s Agent Arias, if you don’t mind,” Sam says, shaking his hand and flashing her badge at him.  “I’m good, thank you. I just need to check on some records from 2009.”

“So I heard,” he says.  He ushers her into his office and shuts the door behind them.  “Unfortunately, HIPAA demands that we--”

“I have the necessary warrant,” Sam says, producing the paperwork out of her jacket with a thin smile.  “You’ll find that everything is in order and you’ll be under no liability.”

“I see,” he says slowly.  He scans through the paperwork and sighs.  “Very well. Medical records already pulled them.”  A thick folder is produced from his desk, and he hands it over hesitantly.  

“Much appreciated,” Sam says, flipping the folder open.  “I don’t suppose you have a picture of the patient, do you?”

“Unfortunately not,” he says.  “It’s not part of the medical records protocol.  Can I ask what this is about?”

“An ongoing investigation,” Sam says with a polite smile.  “I’m not at liberty to divulge any details.” She snaps the folder shut and tucks it under her arm, offering her free hand.  “Thank you for your help. I’ll be in touch if I need anything else from you.”

“Of course,” he says, glib and smiling once more as he shakes her hand.  “Happy to be of service. If you’d like to use one of our conference rooms to review the file, you’re welcome to.  The head of our trauma center was here in 2009, so she might be able to answer any questions you might have”

Sam settles into a meeting room with a cup of coffee and the mystery file spread out in front of her, forehead wrinkling as she skims through the first pages, pulling together the story of a seventeen year old girl with a shattered leg and ruptured spleen and numerous lacerations to her left side from a vehicle accident, airlifted in on a private medical transport from Baja.  Multiple surgeries had set a rod into her femur, reconstructed the damage to her pelvis, repaired torn ligaments in her knee, kept her in the hospital for weeks.

“Cash,” Sam mumbles, flipping through the billing reports.  Nearly half a million in charges, paid in one lump sum to the hospital via cashier’s check, the day the patient was checked out.  She props her chin in her hand and shuffles through the papers again, stopping on the medical authorizations page and the shaky signature and printed name scrawled on it.  Sam digs her phone out of her pocket and dials quickly back to the office.

“Yeah, Jeff, I’m sending you some names.  Couple of sisters. Can you run them before I get back to the office?”

 

* * *

 

Jeff is in her office by the time she makes it back to the office.  He offers her a printout instead of a hello as she strides in, a teenage mugshot staring back at her.

“That’s all we could find,” he says briskly as Sam blindly locks her gun into her desk, scanning over the picture in front of her.  “Orphan, bounced around the system in San Diego, disappeared for a few years when she was about fifteen and resurfaced when she got pinched for working at a chop shop in LA.  She was a minor, but it looks like she took the fall for someone else. Was tried as an adult, got hit with a harder sentence, was in for eight months. She works at a repair shop now in Pasadena, lives in Burbank.”

“And the other one?”

Jeff shrugs helplessly.  “Can’t find any record of in our system, or the state system.  We’re running a check on the other states, but it’ll take a while.”

“So who did she check into Cedars?” Sam mumbles.  “And why did a drug lord like Sinclair pay to fly her to the hospital, and pay 517 _thousand_  dollars for medical bills in cash?”

“No idea,” Jeff says with a sigh.  “How do you want to move forward?”

“Keep digging around,” Sam says, handing the paper back to him.  “See if anyone at Cedars was part of the medical team, or if they know what kind of rehab she went through.  Maybe one of them can help us.”

Jeff disappears out of her office, leaving Sam with the mug shot of a teenager and the question of what role a high school dropout car mechanic has to play with the largest drug syndicate in the world until there’s another knock on the door and Jeff mumbles out _“Agent Nelson to see you,”_ from the doorway and Sam’s boss appears.

“Sir,” she says, standing abruptly.  

“I hear you have a new lead,” he says, settling into the chairs across from her.  

“Possibly.”  She hands him the mug shot.  “She’s connected to someone who it looks like Sinclair covered major emergency medical costs for in 2009.  We’re trying to track the actual patient down, but this woman was listed as her sister in the hospital records.”

“Nothing on the actual patient?”

“We haven’t been able to track her down yet.  The only info we have is in the medical record, but we haven’t been able to find her in any other database so far.”

“Have you talked to the sister?”

Sam fidgets with the cap on her pen, hesitating, not liking the direction he’s pushing the conversation in.  “Not yet, no.”

“Good,” he says, tossing the papers back onto her desk.  “Take point, get what info you can from her.”

“Sir,” Sam says carefully.  “I’m not sure that’s the best approach--”

“This is the first decent break we’ve had in eighteen months, Arias,” he says.  “We’ll get you a backstory. Go in and get a feel for the situation, see what you can find out.”

“With all due respect,” Sam says sharply.  “I’m not cleared for undercover work, and I’ve never wanted to be.”

“You are now,” he says with a shrug.  “Your job is to follow the money and build a case against Sinclair.  The money leads to this woman, so follow it.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam says sullenly as the door shuts.  She sucks in a deep breath and blows it out loudly.  

Two days later, she has a backstory in place, a fake ID, and a clunker of a car that will give her an excuse to head to a garage.  She leaves her badge and gun in the office, and sets off on her way in the cheap business casual knockoff suit the office provided her.  It takes an hour to get to Pasadena, the old car groaning along the highway with a series of thunking noises rattling out of the hood, and Sam pulls into the repair shop’s parking lot, takes a deep breath, and sets off to finding out who the hell Alexandra Danvers is.

 

* * *

 

The waiting room smells like motor oil and cheap air freshener, and Sam wrinkles her nose at the outdated selection of magazines as she waits for someone to talk to.  The air conditioner is on full, blasting out cold air to compensate for the August heat, nearly drowning out the soap opera on the TV.

The door from the garage opens with a squeal and Sam carefully keeps her head down over her phone, waiting for someone to speak to her, and is rewarded by someone calling out the make and model of her fake car.

“That’s me,” she says, gathering her purse and sidling around the empty chairs to the desk.  That’s very certainly Alexandra Danvers on the other side of the desk, the ten years since her mugshot leaving her with shorter hair and a sharper jawline but the same dark eyes and casual slouch.  Sam pastes a smile on her face and anxiety into her posture. “How bad is it?”

“To be honest, ma’am, it’s not great,” she says with a shrug.  “Your fan belt is on its last leg, it looks like the oil hasn’t been changed in about five years, and the brakes are barely holding on.”

Sam lets out a groan, rubbing at her forehead.  “How much?”

“Parts won’t be too bad, you can maybe get away a couple hundred, but the labor-- well, it’s not pretty.  Probably twelve, fifteen hundred, minimum.”

“Shit,” Sam mumbles.  “I don’t suppose I can just like...pick one to fix later, can I?  I don’t get paid until next week.”

“Not if you want to have a car that won’t explode on you, or brakes that work.”

“Will it last til tomorrow?  I really have to get to my second job.”

“I mean, maybe.”  It’s dubious and accompanied with a shake of the head.  Sam sighs and pulls out her phone, linked to a dummy bank account that she pulls up, glancing at the balance of $426.  She bites at her lip, buying time and the appearance of fragility, counting on her fingers and frowning until the woman across from her lets out a sigh of her own.

“Look, I can give you a break on the labor.  The shop doesn’t do installment plans, but I can.  You pay for the parts today and I can fix it up tonight.  It won’t take too long. You can pay me back later.”

“What?”  It wasn’t what Sam had been expecting, a friendly offer from a stranger that she’s investigating for ties to a criminal organization, and her stomach churns at the lie she’s inhabiting.  “No, I can’t do that to you--”

“It’s okay.”  There’s a smile, unexpectedly, and Sam smiles back in spite of herself, uncertain and wavering.  Alexandra Danvers leans across the counter and offers a conspiratorial wink. “The boss here way overcharges for labor anyways,” she says.  “And I’ve been where you are. Everyone needs a hand now and then.”

“Oh,” Sam says softly.  “Well, I mean, if you’re sure--”

“No problem.”  She rips off the existing work order and starts a new one, scribbling out the cost of parts and handing it to Sam.  “$190 even for the parts.”

Sam wordlessly hands over a credit card, contemplating the easy offer of help that Alexandra Danvers, ex-con and potential associate of the most dangerous crime boss in the western hemisphere, offered to a complete stranger for no reason.  

“There has to be some way I can repay you,” Sam says, signing the credit card receipt. “I mean, obviously I’ll pay the installments, for sure, but like-- you’re really helping me out here.”

“Well, the boss always wants good Yelp reviews.”  She tilts her head to one side and smiles, lopsided and lazy, and Sam’s fingernails dig into her palms because she should _really_ not be attracted to this woman.

“You know what I mean,” Sam says.  “Maybe dinner sometime?” It pops out before she can remind herself that she’s undercover and that she technically doesn’t have any money.  “I mean, make you dinner sometime, maybe.” It escapes before she can temper it, and she fights the urge to let out a sigh at herself and resigns to pivoting her undercover approach.  She can make herself an over-eager lesbian with a crush on a hot mechanic. It’s not exactly a challenge, really, if her body’s traitorous reactions thus far are anything to go by.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” Sam rushes out, leaning into the fluster as best she can and tallying ideas of how she can get back at her boss for getting her into this.  “I didn’t mean-- I just thought it would be nice, to say thank you--”

“Sure.”  It comes with a shrug.  There’s a slouch to her shoulders, weighty and resigned, but the smile she offers is almost cocky.  “I’m not going to turn down a homecooked meal.” She staples the receipt to the work order and hands it over to Sam.  “If you can last til tomorrow without the car, it’ll be ready.”

“I can do that,” Sam says with a smile.  “Thank you for your help-- uhm--”

“Alex.”  She holds out a hand.  “My name is Alex.”

“Sam.”  She shakes Alex’s hand, strong and calloused, longer than she means to.  “I really appreciate it.”

Alex shrugs, hand still wrapped around Sam’s.  “Everyone needs a hand sometimes,” she says again.  She clears her throat and reclaims her hand, pointing towards the street.  “There’s a bus stop around the corner and two blocks down.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow night,” Sam says, hoisting her purse onto her shoulder.  “Thanks again.” She backs out of the door into the August heat and sets off towards the bus stop, adding a deliberate pause to look back to where Alex is still watching through the window of the shop.  

A block away, Sam slips into a coffee shop and calls the office.  “We’re set. Put eyes on her home address, I want to make sure we have it scoped.”  She pauses. “Also, send someone to pick me up. There’s no way I’m riding the bus all the way back to the office.”

 

* * *

 

Alex’s phone rings after the shop closes, echoing into the empty garage.  She stretches out with a grunt, barely able to reach it from her spot under Sam’s terrible excuse for a car, and hits the answer button.

“Hello?”

“Where are you?” Kara’s voice rings out, indignant and annoyed.  “It’s your turn to cook.”

“Shit,” Alex mumbles. “Sorry, totally forgot.  I’m still at work.”

“What?  Why?” Dishes clatter in the background, and Alex lets out a groan.  It must be later than she thought, if Kara’s already cooking.

“Doing a favor for someone,” Alex says, digging through a toolbox for a socket wrench.

“I thought you were done doing free work for your shitty boss,” Kara says sharply.

“It’s not for him.”  Alex grunts, straining against a rusted bolt.  

“Oh, no,” Kara says with a sigh.  “Seriously, not again.”

“Don’t act like you wouldn’t do the same thing if someone came in between their two jobs with a dying car and an empty bank account.”  Alex curses when the bolt finally breaks free and her knuckles crash into the engine casing. “It’s not that much work, technically. Danny would have price gouged the shit out of her and you know it.”

“Yeah, duh, that’s why I keep telling you to find another job,” Kara says, eye roll sounding loud through the phone.

“Yeah, well, nobody wants to hire women mechanics.”  Alex glares at the bolt and dumps it into the pile of crap she’s collected from the car, replacing it with a newer one.  “Much less an ex-con high school dropout.”

“Alex, you’re too good for that place,” Kara says quietly.  “And you can still get a GED, you know, and an associate’s too, if you wanted.  We could make it work.”

“We talked about this,” Alex says, pausing and closing her eyes for a deep breath.  

“You just _decided_ for us, that’s not fair,” Kara says.  

“Kara, I’m going to be working in shops like this for the rest of my life, and that’s fine.”  Alex drops the socket wrench onto her stomach and pushes her way out from under the car so she can sit up and put the phone to her ear.  “You know I like the work. But you can make it, doing something you love, and that’s more important.”

“No it isn’t!”

“It is,” Alex says sharply.  “You’re my sister and I love you and I’m doing this with you, okay?  You work your lame side jobs, and I work mine, so that we can get you--”

“I know,” Kara says, sighing loudly, and Alex winces.  “It’s still not fair to you.”

“Yeah, well,” Alex says with a smile and a shrug.  “We’re a package deal. Fair for you is fair for me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kara mutters.  “How much longer?”

“Hour or so,” Alex says.  “I’ll finish as soon as I can.”

“You’d better,” Kara says firmly.  “I made pasta.”

“One hour flat,” Alex amends.  “Save me some.” She hangs up and shoves her way back under the car, moving with more purpose.

 

* * *

 

“Oh, God, it smells amazing,” Alex says as soon as she walks in, heading straight for the kitchen.

“No!” Kara says, sprinting around her and blocking the doorway to the kitchen.  “Shower first. No grease in the kitchen, you know the rules.”

“But I’m so hungry,” Alex says with a whine, pouting when Kara points sharply towards the bathroom.  “Fine. Tyrant.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”  Kara pulls two beers from the fridge and follows Alex to the bathroom, handing one blindly into the shower for Alex and settling on the floor with hers.  “Okay, so what sob story suckered you into working for free again?”

“It’s not for free.”  Alex’s head appears around the shower curtain to glare at her.  “She’s going to pay the labor in installments.”

“She, huh,” Kara says.  “I see.”

“It’s not like that,” Alex says petulantly from inside the shower.  “This poor lady came in with an absolute disaster of a car and it was going to be close to two grand at Danny’s prices and she has, like, less money than we do.”  Her head pops out from the shower curtain again, covered in shampoo and glaring. “It was the nice thing to do.”

“Right,” Kara drawls.  “So she was hot, then.”

“Shut up!” Alex yells, one hand appearing to fling sudsy water at Kara.  

“Totally hot,” Kara says.  “So how long is the hot maybe-con artist going to take to pay you back?”

There’s no reply from Alex, and Kara counts seconds on her fingers until she answers.

“Probably a couple of months,” Alex says reluctantly.  “But she did say she’d make me dinner.” She pops out again with a wide grin, just in time to see Kara roll her eyes with a groan.

“Didn’t you used to complain about Danny’s creepy brother always hitting on the soccer moms who brought their cars in?”

“Excuse you, I didn’t hit on her.”  The water shuts off and Alex wraps a towel around herself, stepping out and shaking water from her hair onto Kara.  “She hit on _me_ .  It was her suggestion.  Also, she is _definitely_ not a soccer mom.”

“Uh huh,” Kara says.  “Sure. And you’re definitely not going to sleep with her after she makes you dinner.”

Alex scoffs, too loud and too much, and Kara rolls her eyes again.  “Don’t think you’re going to get out of training with me. You promised.”

“Hey, you know I wouldn’t do that,” Alex says, grin vanishing.  “I told you I’d do your godawful early morning training sessions with you, and I will.”

“Great,” Kara says brightly.  “Six tomorrow, be ready to run.”  She bounces out of the bathroom, skipping away from Alex’s groan.

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey, boss.”  Jeff knocks on the door to Sam’s office.  “What’s up?”

“Did you get eyes on Danvers?”

“Not yet,” he says with a scowl.  “Paperwork got held up.”

“Seriously?” Sam sighs and rubs at her forehead.  

“Yeah, sorry, it’s because of the--”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Sam finishes for him.  “When?”

“End of day tomorrow, they said.”

Sam groans and flops back into her chair.  Apparently she’ll have to go cook for Alex Danvers anyways.  “See if you can light a fire under them, will you?”

“Sure thing, boss.”  He pauses on his way out.  “Those cash flow statements are ready for review, if you want.”

“Yeah, sure, send them over,” Sam says with another sigh as the door closes.  She switches the sim card out of her phone and takes a deep breath, dialing the number on the business card for the repair shop.  “Hi, is Alex Danvers there?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Um,” Sam says slowly.  “A friend of hers, I lost all my contacts in my phone the other day and couldn’t remember her cell--”

“Yeah, sure,” the man on the other in grumbles out.  There’s a shout of Alex’s name in the background, loud enough to make Sam wince and glare at her phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” Sam says.  “It’s Sam, from yesterday.”

“Oh,” Alex says slowly.  “Hey. I didn’t realize--”

“Sorry, I wasn’t sure if that was your boss? I didn’t want to maybe get you in trouble.”

“No worries,” Alex says.  “Your car’s almost ready, if you want to pick it up today.”

“Oh, great,” Sam says brightly.  “So when can I make you dinner, then?”

“Oh,” Alex says, fluster edging into her voice, and Sam leans back in her chair and smirks towards the ceiling.  “You really don’t have to do that, you know.”

“Yeah, but I want to,” Sam says.  “Though I have, like, five roommates, so it might be a bit crowded.”

“Oh,” Alex says again. “I mean-- we can go to my house, if you want?”

“No roommates?”

“Well, I mean, I live with my sister, but she’ll be out.”

Sam wrinkles her nose and swallows a sigh, forcing a smile onto her face and into her voice.  “Perfect. I’ll pick the car up around seven and we can go from there?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, the faint edges of a smile working their way into her voice.  “Sounds good.”

“See you then,” Sam says, ending the call and discarding the phone with a sigh.  So much for getting ahold of the mysterious Kara Danvers.

She switches to her other phone and hits the speed dial for her neighbor.  “Hey, I’m sorry to ask, but do you think you could watch Ruby tonight? Something came up at work.”

 

* * *

Sam boards the bus with four bags of groceries at rush hour.  It’s hot and the bus air conditioner barely works, and she slumps onto the cheap plastic with a sigh.  It had taken her longer to shop than intended, the readjustment back to being 22 with an infant, no money, and barely functional culinary skills more challenging than expected.

She makes it to the repair shop just before closing and just as Alex is locking up the garage doors.  She pastes a bright smile across her face and waves as best she can with full hands. 

“Hey,” Alex says with a smile of her own.  “You made it.”

“Sorry, the bus was late,” Sam says, forcing a measure of breathlessness into her words.  “How are you?”

“Oh, you know,” Alex says with a shrug, and the fake breathlessness in Sam's chest gives way to a real stutter in her pulse and lapse in her breathing.  Instead of the heavy work pants and short sleeved shirt of yesterday, Alex is in a pair of coveralls tied around her waist, grease marks all over her hands and tracking up towards shoulders exposed under the tank top she’s wearing in the egregious heat.  Criminal connections or not, it’s unfairly attractive, and Sam is only human. “Our AC broke, so it’s been a banner day, let me tell you.”

“That sounds terrible,” Sam says, wrinkling her nose.  “If you don’t want to do this tonight--I don’t want to impose if you had a bad day--”

“No, it’s cool.”  Alex flashes a grin at her.  “Makes the idea of actual dinner a lot nicer, actually.  You might just have to deal with me taking a superfast shower first.”  She digs into her coverall pocket and produces Sam’s car keys, pointing with them at Sam’s car, which also somehow looks cleaner than it had a day ago.  “Car’s all good to go. Belts, drums, and discs replaced, oil changed, brakes bled, the whole shebang. Should run like a dream now.”

“Wow,” Sam mumbles.  Her functional understanding of car mechanics is just enough to tell her how much work Alex had actually done compared to what she was charging, and the difference was enormous.  “Thank you so much.”

“No problem,” Alex says with a shrug.  She produces another set of car keys. “Shall we?  There’s plenty of street parking.”

“Lead the way,” Sam says, accepting her keys and unlocking the car.  

The house is small and  squat painted cinderblock almost indistinguishable from the rest of the block, with an even smaller, neatly kept yard and a detached garage with a padlock, sharing fences on either side with similar houses and facing a dingy gas station and U-Haul depot across the street. Sam takes a second glance at the lock on the garage as she unloads the groceries before smiling uncertainly at Alex and following her inside.  

“So you live with your sister?” Sam says carefully, settling the groceries in the small kitchen.  “Also, I should have asked earlier, but is stir fry okay?”

“Yes and yes,” Alex says.  She blindly tosses her keys into a basket by the fridge and slides around Sam, opening cabinet doors and pointing out the cooking supplies. “She picked up some extra shifts tonight.”  

“Must be nice to live with someone you actually like,” Sam says, hefting a skillet and inspecting it, diverting her focus to the cookware instead of the lying.  “All of my roommates are-- well. Obnoxious people I found on Craigslist.”

“Yeah, it’s nice, not gonna lie,” Alex says.  “There’s beer in the fridge if you want some. I’m going to shower real fast and I’ll be right back.”

“Take your time,” Sam says with a smile.  She sets to unloading the groceries and starts the food, waiting until the water’s started for the opportunity creep towards the bathroom, pressing her ear to the door and listening carefully for the sound of Alex actually being in the shower.  

Satisfied, she strides through the small house and finds the room that’s clearly Alex’s.  There’s a toolbox on the floor, overflowing, and what looks like a half-assembled motorcycle engine next to it, the bed neatly made and a small bookshelf stuffed full of books and a single framed picture of Alex and a blonde woman who might be her sister.  Sam snaps a picture with her phone quickly and moves on to the only other room in the house, which must belong to her sister.

It’s smaller than Alex’s, cluttered with a yoga mat and a weight bench and mismatched dumbbells and resistance bands, the bed crowded into a corner and unmade.  Unframed pictures are taped all over the walls, a collage of photos of the same blonde woman-- almost definitely Kara Danvers-- and Alex, and an enormous classroom-sized calendar with numbers and abbreviations scrawled all over.  Sam takes another picture and shoves her phone away into her pocket, scurrying back into the kitchen to keep cooking.

Five minutes later, the water is off and Alex reappears in sweats and a t-shirt, toweling her hair dry. She’s wearing glasses, and looks unfairly good in them, and Sam bites down on the inside of her cheek.  “Smells awesome,” she says, pulling two beers out of the fridge and offering one to Sam. 

“I used to live on this when I was in college,” Sam says with a shrug.  She twists the top off her beer and takes a sip, sinking into the coolness it settles in her chest.  She can do this. “Ten bucks at the store and I had, like, four days’ worth of meals.” She tilts the beer bottle towards Alex in a toast.  “You know how it is.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Alex says, clearing her throat and taking a long sip of her beer.  “We trade nights cooking, but mostly all I can make is pasta. And burgers.”

“Hey, if it works, it works.”  Sam shoots a grin over one shoulder.  “Plates?”

Alex sets to pulling plates out of the cabinets, and Sam pauses, breathes, smiles at her.  She can do this.

 

* * *

“Okay, wait, wait,” Sam says, pausing and squinting at Alex, who takes a long sip of her beer to settle her pulse and how she keeps wanting to reach for Sam’s bright smile and warm hands.  “You work for a guy,” she carries on. “Who underpays you.” One finger up. “Won’t call you by your actual name.” Two. “Gives you the shitty jobs.” Three. “And hits on every woman who comes into the shop.”  Four. “Did I miss anything?”

“He grabs my ass like, four times a week,” Alex says, reaching over and unfolding Sam’s thumb so all five fingers on one hand are out and pretending there's no lingering warmth in her fingertips from the moment of contact.  “Aside from that, no.”

“That’s sexual harassment!” Sam says, too loud for the small house, and winces.  “Sorry, I mean-- but it is! That’s super not okay.”

“Yeah, well.”  Alex shrugs from her spot sitting on the floor by the couch, elbows on her knees.  She pulls at the label on her beer bottle and shrugs again, presses her lips together, bites back the words  _ no one else will hire an ex-con _ .  “What’re you gonna do?”

“Quit!” Sam exclaims.  “Report him. Quit. Unionize?  Are you unionized?”

“It is what it is, you know?” Alex rips a piece of her beer label off and rolls it between her fingers.  “It’s a paycheck, and steady work, and I’m good enough at it that he won’t ever fire me.” She flicks the paper out of her fingers, smiling momentarily when it lands neatly on her empty plate.  “Anyways, enough about me. I don’t even know what you  _ do _ .”

“Pfft,” Sam says, flapping one hand in the air and slumping back into the couch.  “Boring crap.”

“Boring how?” Alex folds her arms over her knees and props her chin on them, watching as Sam huffs out a sigh and rolls her eyes.  She'd put her hair up at some point, piling it into a casual knot at the back of her head, and Alex has to fight the urge to lick her lips every time Sam pushes a loose strand out of her eyes.

“Accounting,” she mumbles, not meeting Alex’s eyes.  “At a payroll firm.” 

“You’re an accountant?”

“I mean, no, not really,” Sam keeps her eyes on her knees.  “I’m not a CPA. Couldn’t pass the exam.” She forces a smile and shrugs.  “So I do basic shit.”

“Oh,” Alex says after a moment.  She bites down on the inside of her cheek.  “I never finished high school. Dropped out when I was sixteen.”

“What?” Sam blinks down at her, eyes widening slightly and mouth going slack, and Alex clears her throat and looks down to where her bare toes are an inch away from the toes of Sam’s socks.  They're dark blue and patterned with tiny sharks, a muted contrast to the plain black of her slacks and simple navy of her blouse.

“We needed money, and I couldn’t make enough for the both of us flipping burgers or anything like that,” Alex says carefully.  “So I stripped cars at a joint in our neighborhood. Cash, under the table.” She offers her own empty smile and lifts one shoulder.  She glances down at her phone to take time out of the silence. The screen blinks 10:42 up at her.

“I should probably go,” Sam says suddenly.  “It’s really late, I should let you--”

“You don’t have to--”

“No, it’s cool,” Sam says, pushing up from the couch.  “I’ll just clean up and head out.”

“Don’t worry about cleaning,” Alex says hurriedly, pushing up to her feet.  “The cook doesn’t clean. House rules.”

“Are you sure?”

“Totally sure.”  Alex nods sharply.  “Are you okay to drive?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Sam says with a smile.  “Thanks for letting me crash your whole evening.”

“Yeah, such a buzzkill, making me dinner,” Alex says with an eyeroll and a hipcheck.  “It was a complete drag.”

“You’re not funny.”  Sam follows her into the kitchen, plates in hand, stopping abruptly when Alex spins around and yanks them out of her hands with a sharp look.  “Fine, okay, no cleaning.” 

Alex sets to stacking dishes into the sink, glancing periodically over her shoulder to where Sam's settled at the kitchen table to put her shoes back on, tugging on the laces blindly and watching Alex unabashedly.  

“How much for the labor?”

“The what now?”

“For the car,” Sam says slowly.  “Installment plan, right? How much was it and what kind of installment?”

“Oh, it’s--”

“Don’t lowball me,” Sam adds on.

“I-- was not going to do that,” Alex says carefully, turning back to the sink to avoid Sam’s scoff until Sam flings a beer cap at her, nailing her in the shoulder.  “Ow!”

“There’s more where that came from,” Sam says, another cap already in her hand.  

“Fine, fine,” Alex mumbles.  “Six hundred flat. Take however long you need.”

“Six plus interest,” Sam says as she stands.  “Got it.”

“Wait, hold on,” Alex says, spinning around on one heel.  “No interest.”

“Yes interest,” Sam parrots back at her, nose wrinkled and chin high.  “You can’t stop me.” She hoists her purse and walks backwards out of the kitchen, towards the front door, sticking her tongue out as Alex follows.

“No interest,” Alex says again, advancing on her with hands on her hips and a dishtowel over her shoulder.  The intimidation she's aiming for falters when she has to pause to push her glasses back up her nose. “Seriously.”

“It’s only fair,” Sam says, stopping just shy of the door.

“You made me dinner,” Alex throws back. “Isn’t that fair enough?”

“Please,” Sam says, blowing out a disgruntled noise and rolling her eyes towards the ceiling.  “Not even close.”

Alex takes another step and pushes up on to her toes, pressing a fleeting kiss to Sam’s mouth, then another, before yanking back two steps.

“Oh,” Sam mumbles, slumping back against the door.

“I’m sorry, I just--it seemed like a good idea,” Alex says, dishtowel twisting in her hands and wishing for a hole to open up and swallow her into the floor. “I mean--”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Sam cuts her off, fingertips pressing against her mouth momentarily.  One side of her mouth curls up into a smile, and Alex grips tighter to the towel in her hands, as if holding hard enough will steady the flutter of anxiety in her stomach.  

“Really?” 

“Yeah,” Sam says softly, smiling at her and biting down on her bottom lip.  “Really.” She pushes off of the door and clears her throat, ducks her head, smiles.  “I should--” 

“Yeah,” Alex says dumbly.  “Have a good night.”

“You too,” Sam says, sliding out of the door and glancing over her shoulder.  Alex waves, hand still wrapped in the dishtowel, until the door closes, and then slumps bonelessly against it with a wide smile on her lips.

 

* * *

In her car, Sam slumps over the steering wheel, muttering out a quiet  _ “Fuck,” _ and grabbing at the ratty steering wheel until her knuckles ache, as if holding onto it hard enough will chase away that the woman she’s investigating just kissed her and all she wants is to go back inside and kiss her again.

She breathes heavily into the stale air of the cheap car, slamming one hand against the dashboard, hard enough that the impact jolts up to her shoulder.  “Fuck.”

 

* * *

The front door opens at just before midnight, and Kara walks in with a yawn and a stack of thirty hundred-dollar bills.  

“Hey,” she says, yawning again and flopping down onto the couch next to Alex.

“How’d it go?”

Kara hands her the stack of cash and drops her head into Alex’s lap, claiming her book and moving it out of the way.  “How was dinner?”

“It was good,” Alex says, flipping through the bills.  “There’re leftovers. Stir fry.”

“What, you had dinner here?”

“I like our space?” Alex flushes defensively.

“You brought a maybe-con artist to our house?” Kara opens one eye enough to halfheartedly glare up at her.  “You really are such a sucker for a sob story.”

“Leave me alone and go eat dinner,” Alex says, clearing her throat indignantly.

“Too sleepy,” Kara mumbles.  “Why are you still up?”

“Not sleepy.”  Alex sets the cash aside and pushes at Kara’s hair absently.

“You got up at five with me and I took a nap but you definitely didn’t and then you invited a random hot lady over for dinner.”  Kara rolls over onto her back to squint up at Alex. “Either you had coffee at eight again or your dinner was-- oh!” She sits up abruptly.  “You actually like her! Was this a  _ date _ ?”

“It wasn’t a date!” Alex hisses at her, shoving a fist into her shoulder, only to hesitate and then smile in spite of herself.  “Okay, maybe.”

“And?”  Kara flings out one arm, slapping at her shoulder.  “Details!”

“Weren't you just yelling at me about inviting her over?”

“Yeah, but that was before I knew you actually liked her, so now you have to tell me everything!” 

“I maybe kinda kissed her and I think she maybe kinda liked it?”

“Yeah she did!” Kara yells out, sitting up and slamming into Alex’s side in a hug.  

 

* * *

By the time Sam’s dropped the clunker off and met up with Jeff, it’s nearly ten; by the time she’s changed, picked up her own car, and made it home, it’s almost midnight and the neighbor watching Ruby is, to put it mildly, disgruntled.

“I’m so sorry,” Sam whispers as she walks in.  She digs a stack of twenties out of her purse, offering a severe overpayment to Mrs. Queller, who sniffs disdainfully at the badge and gun clipped to Sam’s belt but takes the money and counts it carefully anyways.  She whisks off with a short nod at the payment and another sniff. 

“Asshole,” Sam mumbles, locking the door.  She drops her purse with a sigh and locks her gun away, groaning and stretching.  It’s a Friday, which means she has to be up and in the car with Ruby by seven the next morning, and she groans again.  She takes a glass of whiskey into the shower with her and carefully thinks of everything that isn’t Alex Danvers kissing her, and it’s midnight by the time she’s kissed her sleeping daughter and settled into bed with her laptop, emailing pictures and information to Jeff.

The look on Alex’s face when she’d kissed her, though--bashful, hopeful, completely unassuming-- creeps continually into her focus.  Nothing about Alex Danvers reads as someone who would be involved in a drug cartel, not least her modest bank accounts and home, but the money still points towards her.  

“Shit,” Sam mumbles, head dropping back against the wall with a thunk.  Guilt twists in her chest, heavy and cold. There’s a reason she’s never done undercover-- mostly the reason is in the third grade and wants to eat nothing but chicken nuggets and ice cream, but also because she doesn’t have the stomach for it-- and it’s only been 36 hours and she’s already emotionally invested in her target.  

“Shit.”  She lets out a groan and slides down under the blankets, discarding her laptop onto the bedside table and shutting the light off.  She has to be up in five hours, and focusing on Alex Danvers and all the ways that Sam is mistreating her won’t help her sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Sam takes her laptop with her to Ruby’s class, settling in at the cheap cafe an exit away on the highway and stretching her legs out onto the seat across from her.  She only got four hours of sleep the night before and half of her notes are gibberish and filled with typos. An hour in and she’s rewritten them into something vaguely useful and is on her third bad cup of coffee, and she finally gives in and hits the speed dial on her phone.

“Hey, boss,” Jeff says on the second ring.  “Aren’t Saturdays off limits for you?”

“What, you’re not in the office?” She says drily.

“I could be...not there,” Jeff says after a moment, and then sighs.  “Okay, I’m in the office. Busted. I have no social life.”

“Well, I’m in a diner in the middle of nowhere. Want to trade?”

“Definitely not.”

“I uploaded some pictures last night,” Sam says.  “Can you run them through facial recog--”

“Already done,” Jeff says briskly.

“God, who taught you to be such an excellent agent?  She must be amazing.”

“Some nerd,” Jeff says, and Sam scoffs into the phone.  “I set it running this morning, haven’t checked in-- okay, here we go.”  There’s a shuffle of papers in the background. “Okay, so we got a hit on a driver’s license for a Kara Zor-el, not Danvers.”

“Zor-el?”  She turns the name around in her head, nose wrinkling at the foreign sound.  “What the hell kind of name is  _ that _ ?”

“That’s what it says,” Jeff says.  “I’ll email it to you.”

“You’re the best,” Sam says.  “Also, can you pull one of the junior agents to watch Ruby?  I can’t keep making the neighborhood babysitter do it. Nelson will sign off.”

“Yeah, of course.  Do you have time to go over the prep for the witness meeting on--”

“Get out of the office,” Sam says sharply.  “No more working until Monday.”

“I’m--” 

“Goodbye, Jeffrey,” Sam sing-songs into the phone before hanging up.  The email comes through moments later, a driver’s license loading. It’s definitely the same woman from the pictures, and Sam props her chin in her hand, scrolling through the file attached to it: left at a safe haven hospital in San Diego, shuffled from foster home to foster home until she disappeared the age of fourteen, with no records at all to her name until she reappeared again at eighteen for a GED in Los Angeles.  “Seriously, who the hell are you?”

Sam closes out of the file and pulls her other phone out of her bag, staring down at it for a long moment before unlocking it and hitting redial.  It’s Saturday, which means movies with Ruby, but her bedtime is eight anyways and crotchety Mrs. Queller is always available to wring more money out of Sam, especially for late nights.

“Hey,” she says, pushing a smile onto her face when Alex answers.

“Hi,” Alex says with her own smile in her voice, and Sam balls a napkin up in her free hand, squeezing against the cold ache in her chest.  “What’s up?”

“Oh, you know, nothing much,” Sam says, forcing her hand to relax.  “I was wondering if you wanted to do dinner again. Sometime.”

“Sometime?” Alex says slowly.  “Sometime like...in the vastness of the entire future, or sometime soon?”

“Sometime soon.”  Sam rolls her eyes and smiles, this time for real, without meaning to, and clenches her fist around the napkin again because she isn’t here to be charmed by Alex Danvers.  “Maybe tonight?”

“I could do that,” Alex says with a noncommittal hum.  

“I can pick you up at nine?” Sam offers.

“Not to insult your car, which now clearly runs like a dream,” Alex says, pausing for Sam’s indignant scoff.  “But maybe I can drive?”

“I mean, you could,” Sam says.  “But I asked, so I get to take you out.  You can drive next time, maybe.”

“Next time?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, giving up on not smiling for real.  “So, nineish?”

“Nineish,” Alex confirms.  “I’ll see you then.” 

Sam stares down at her phone long after the call has ended, unease rolling in her stomach at exactly what she’s gotten herself into.

 

* * *

Alex answers the door on the first knock with a wide smile and nervous hands, and her pulse stutters for a moment at Sam on her doorstep again, with her long legs and warm smile.

“Hi,” she says, stepping back to allow room for Sam to slide inside.

“Hey,” Sam says with a smile of her own, pausing to kiss Alex’s cheek on her way in, hand fleeting on her waist.  “Is now still a good time?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Alex says, straightening her glasses and shutting the door behind her.  “Though if you want, I was thinking maybe we could stay in, order a pizza?”

“Oh?” One of Sam’s eyebrows lifts up and Alex’s stomach swoops, her cheeks heating.

“I mean, if you had something planned--”

“Nothing major,” Sam says with a shrug and an easy smile.  “Is your sister going to chaperone?”

“Nope,” Alex says.  “She’s out.”

“Good,” Sam says.  She pushes her hands into her pockets and leans closer to kiss Alex, soft and chaste, and Alex’s hands curl into fists in her own pockets to keep from reaching out to hold her. “Hi,” Sam says again, inches away.

“Hi,” Alex says softly, smiling in spite of herself.  “Want a beer?”

“Yeah.”  Sam’s teeth close around her lower lip and she steps back, making room for Alex to slide by to the kitchen.  “Please.” 

Alex manages to keep her smile restrained until her back is to Sam, mouth cracking into a full-on grin as she makes her way into the kitchen.

 

* * *

It’s nearly midnight when the front door opens, and Sam is ostensibly buzzed.  Alex is actually drunk, the cheap whiskey bottle between them half empty and her shots not having disappeared neatly into the bottle of beer she’s chasing with like Sam’s have.

“Hey!” Alex whisper-shouts.  “You’re home early!”

“And clearly I’m interrupting something.”  The woman with the amused smile has to be Alex’s sister, and Sam watches with half-lidded eyes as she settles down onto the floor at Alex’s side and offers a hand.  “Hi, I’m Kara.”

“Sam.”  She shakes Kara’s hand warmly and smiles as lazily as she can.  “So you’re the famous sister? Alex was just talking about you.”

“Famous, eh?” Kara digs an elbow into Alex’s side.  “What lies have you been telling her?”

“Just the cold hard facts.”  Alex straightens her glasses and shoves her own elbow back into Kara’s side.  “No lies here. Not allowed.”

“She said you’re a motorcycle racer,” Sam mumbles out.  “That’s super cool.”

“I’m not exactly--”

“She’s  _ incredible _ ,” Alex says with another elbow to her side, cutting Kara off.  “If she was a man she’d be on a factory team already.”

Kara clears her throat loudly, shooting a glare at Alex, and glances back to Sam and shakes her head.  “I’m trying to turn pro,” she says. “But I started late and it’s more of a boy’s club than most things.  Makes it a bit harder.”

“It’s still super cool,” Sam says again.  “My--” She catches herself quickly, diverting away from the  _ my daughter _ that’s on the tip of her tongue.  “I’d be so scared to try it.”

“It’s not scary at all,” Kara says. Alex’s head drops onto her shoulder and she pats at it absently.  “I mean, on the streets it is, but not on a course, not motocross.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”  Sam yawns and checks her watch, smiling when Alex yawns as well.  “I should head out, it’s late--”

“Don’t mind me,” Kara says, hands out in front of her.  “I didn’t mean to interrupt--”

“No, no, it’s okay, I should really head home.”  Sam pushes up from the couch and stretches, turning in a circle in search of her shoes. “I’m pretty tired.”

“Don’t know how you aren’t drunk,” Alex says moodily.  

“You know how it is,” Sam says with a wink.  “Us accountants, we go hard.” She shoves her feet into her shoes and offers a hand to both of them, helping them up.  

“I’m going to go shower,” Kara says with a smile.  “It was nice to meet you.” She disappears before either of them can say anything, leaving Sam and Alex in the living room alone.

“You sure you’re okay to drive?” Alex says, hands in her pockets once more and cheeks red from the alcohol.  

“Totally fine to drive.”  Sam digs her keys out of her pocket and takes a step towards the door, and then another.  Alex trails after her, nearly colliding with her back when Sam stops. 

“Oops,” Alex mumbles, wrinkling her nose, and Sam turns around with an ache in her stomach.  Everything about this feels wrong, but she forces mind back onto the hundreds of thousands of dollars of illegal money that led her here and doesn’t protest when Alex pushes up on her toes once more to kiss her.

“I had a good time tonight,” Sam says softly, one hand curled loosely around Alex’s arm.  “Maybe we can do this again sometime.”

“Sometime soon?” Alex says, biting down at her lip, and Sam’s mouth goes dry.

“Yeah,” she says.  “Sometime soon.” She leans into it when Alex’s hands escape her pockets and curl around her neck, pulling her down for another kiss.  

Ten minutes later when Sam makes it out to her car, breath still heavy and pulse still tripping in her chest, she slumps into the driver’s seat and mumbles out a curse.  Everything about this, from the way her palms are still warm from holding Alex’s hips to the way she’d so casually said  _ no lies here _ feels wrong.

 

* * *

Alex flops down onto the couch, smiling sleepily up towards the ceiling.  She doesn’t move until Kara comes out of the shower in a towel and shakes water from her hair onto Alex, who grumbles and curls up away from the spray.

“Stop daydreaming about hot Sam,” Kara says, shoving at her shoulder.

“I’m not daydreaming,” Alex mumbles.

“You have that really stupid I-like-a-girl face.”  Kara sits on the back of the couch and pokes at Alex’s cheek.  “She kissed you again, didn’t she?”

“I kissed  _ her _ , thank you very much,” Alex says with a glare.

“Look at you being a not-useless lesbian for once.”  Kara pokes her cheek again, grinning down at her and shaking more water onto her.  “I’m proud of you.”

“Stop making fun of me,” Alex grumbles.

“Never,” Kara sings out, flopping down on top of her.

 

* * *

Monday morning rolls around, and Sam’s barely been in the office for half an hour when Nelson appears in her doorway.

“When’s the next Luthor meeting?” he says in lieu of a greeting.

Sam blinks up at him, spoonful of yogurt halfway to her mouth and partially-turned page frozen.  “Wednesday, at one,” she says after a moment. “Good morning, sir.”

“I’m handing it over to Rutherford,” he says.  “I want you on the Danvers thing until future notice.  Get him caught up before the meeting.”

“What-- wait, hold on,” Sam says, discarding her breakfast.  “Sir, she’s my witness. I brought her in, I did all of the legwork for years--”

“Your priority is the Danvers side of things,” Nelson says, stony and annoyed as always.  

“I can handle both,” Sam says.  Her teeth grind together and she clenches her hands together behind her back.  “Luthor is an easy asset and always cooperates. I can focus on Alex Danvers and still handle Lena Luthor.”  She squares her shoulders and fights the urge to throw her yogurt at him. “Besides, you gave me priority on the Sinclair case over Rutherford because he wasn’t making any headway.  I’m the one who’s actually gotten something done, and it’s unnecessarily punitive to take away the witness I flipped just because I didn’t have my head up my ass and managed to find a new lead on Sinclair.  Sir.”

Nelson folds his arms over his chest and glares at her, and Sam glares right back, holding her ground and not blinking.

“With all due respect, I have a seven year old,” she says after a moment.  “I’m  _ really _ good at staring contests.”

Nelson cracks a smile, for once, shaking his head and shrugging.  “Keep your witness. But I want headway on the Danvers thing--”

“End of the week,” she promises.  He leaves her door half open on the way out, and Jeff cranes his head in with wide eyes.

“Did he just  _ smile _ ?”


	4. Chapter 4

“Okay, so,” Sam says around a mouthful of enchiladas.  “Not that I’m not enjoying this. Because I am.”

“Good to know,” Alex says, raising one eyebrow and looking over the top of her beer bottle.  

“And not that I’m trying to be like...insulting or anything,” Sam goes on.  She takes another bite of her food and groans. “God, this is so good.”

“Uh huh,” Alex drawls.  “But?”

“But you already told me how much your boss underpays you,” Sam says slowly.  “And I know most of what you both make goes towards Kara’s racing.”

“Uh huh.”

“How are you affording this place?” Sam waves her free hand around the upscale Mexican restaurant in the middle of downtown LA, the spread of food in front of them, her eighteen dollar cocktail. 

Alex shrugs casually and swallows the last of her beer.  “Kara pitched in. She said it was past due time to take you out to a real dinner.”

“What, it’s not real dinner if I make you the best stir fry of your life in your house?” Sam says, nose wrinkling and bottom lip jutting out.

“It doesn’t count as me getting you dinner,” Alex counters, pointing sharply with her empty bottle.

“What does Kara even do?  Besides train?” So far, all Sam’s been able to find about Kara is that she files her taxes every year for a modest income from a tutoring company with a defunct website and a generic voicemail, but she’s seen Kara coming in from work at midnight in the month she’s spent getting to know the both of them, and the information they’d requested from her employer had been slow in coming, held up in bureaucracy and incompetence.

“It’s a secret,” Alex fake-whispers, winking gratuitously.  She leans back to let the server deposit a new beer bottle in front of her, murmuring her thanks without looking away from Sam.  “But mostly, yeah, all she does is train. She runs and lifts weights like a crazy person like, every single day, and spends most mornings at a local track.”

“Ew,” Sam says with a frown.  She flips it around as she best she can, pasting a grin on her face and leaning over the table.  “Anyways. Let’s not talk about your sister.”

“Yeah.”  Alex leans forward as well, beer bottle dangling from her hand lazily.  “Let’s not.”

So much for getting more information about Kara.  Sam smiles around the block in her stomach, the one built out of guilt and self-disgust, because she’s having  _ fun _ with Alex, and likes her more than she wants to, and she can’t escape the fact that she’s lying to her constantly.  Just like she can’t escape the fact that she’s halfway to self-sabotaging every time she might get an opportunity to find out what Kara does.

 

* * *

It’s five past the meeting time when Sam hurries into the conference room, two cups from the Starbucks in the lobby stacked precariously atop her stack of files.

“Sorry I’m late, Ms. Luthor,” she says, nudging the door shut with one foot.  

“Honestly, hasn’t it been long enough for you to call me by my first name?” 

Sam manages to hand her one of the coffees without spilling anything and claims her own, dropping down into her chair tiredly across from Lena Luthor, the first asset she flipped on the case, who she’s been meeting with every two weeks for the last three years and some days even considers a friend, half of their meetings stretching into overly long lunches or coffee breaks.

“I’m a sucker for formality,” she says, even as she smiles.  “At least when my boss is two doors down. How are you?”

“I can’t complain,” Lena says with a smile of her own, even as she sniffs delicately at the coffee.

“I won’t be offended if you don’t drink it,” Sam says drily.  “It’s terrible.” She takes a long sip of her own anyways, grimacing at the five-hours burnt taste.  “But what would the FBI be without terrible coffee?”

“Happy, healthy, and well-caffeinated?” Lena says playfully.  She takes a careful sip of the coffee and frowns down at it. “Anyways, what can I do for you today, Agent Arias?”

“You know, for someone giving me a hard time about formality, you sure hold onto it as well,” Sam says.  “And you know the drill. Regular check-in, blah blah blah.”

“Has anyone from Veronica Sinclair’s organization tried to contact me, has anyone associated with my brother tried to contact me, have I noticed anyone following me, have reporters tried to talk to me about my brother’s conviction, am I continuing to submit my company to heightened financial scrutiny,” Lena says, holding up a new finger for each comment.  “Did I miss anything?”

“I think that’s the whole shebang,” Sam says.  “Can I check a nice big  _ no _ on all of the boxes on my forms, then?”

“Well, I mean, reporters try to talk to me about Lex every day,” Lena says with a shrug.  “That doesn’t mean they succeed.”

“So your terrifying assistant is still getting her rocks off putting the fear of God into anyone who wants to speak to you?”

“That would be correct.”  Lena tilts her head slightly, a smile lifting at one side of her mouth.  “Except for you. She’s rather fond of you at this point, I think.”

“Right,” Sam says with a nod.  “So, on our side of things, there’s the good news and the bad news.  The bad news being that, to the surprise of no one and as of the most recent babysitting check-in we had with the prison , your brother is still throwing his murder tantrums and trying to kill you.  The good news being that he’s still isolated and hasn’t been able to speak to anyone in a year, so at this point they really are just full-on tantrums.”

“How charming,” Lena murmurs.  “I suppose I don’t have to ask if you’ll be letting me know should he manage to actually concoct a functional plot to kill me, right?”

“You’ll be the first to know.   Well, second,” Sam amends. “No offense, but I’d tell your assistant first.  She’d probably glare any assassin into submission.”

“Well, I can’t argue with that,” Lena says, leaning back in her chair.  “So, how are things moving forward with the case?”

Sam shrugs and leans back as well, stretching against the tension in her shoulders.  Meetings with Lena are a moment to breathe, an hour every other week when she can relax, a brief moment of calm in the midst of her casework, and she’s avoided dropping the frequency of the meetings even when she justifiably could.  “A few leads, maybe, but no significant progress at this point.”

“And how’s that daughter of yours?”

Sam huffs out a deep breath and rolls her eyes towards the ceiling.  “You don’t even know what nonsense she’s decided is important now.”

“When I was seven I stole Lex’s welding torch to try and build my own Iron Man suit,” Lena says with a sniff.  “Unless she’s managed to top setting her hair on fire six times, I don’t think it’ll actually be worse than anything I did as a child.”

“Dirtbikes,” Sam says flatly.  “She’s decided she needs to ride dirtbikes.  I’m driving her out almost to Joshua Tree every Saturday for lessons.”

“Well, that’s…dedication,” Lena says delicately, and Sam rolls her eyes.  

“It’s a pain in my ass, is what it is,” Sam says.  “But I promised her six months, so she’s getting six months, and then we’ll see.”

“So you’re going to keep driving her out to these lessons until she...what, decided she wants to do this forever and you have to buy her a motorcycle?”

“I mean, obviously I’m hoping she burns out on it before then,” Sam says.  “I love the kid and if that’s what makes her happy, it’s what we’ll do, but God.  She couldn’t have picked like...ballet, or surfing, or literally anything that doesn’t require fifty square miles of empty dirt?”

“So I take it that you aren’t going to be joining her in this venture?”

“Oh, God, no,” Sam says with a snort.  “If she sticks with it then maybe I’ll get lucky and one of her instructors will like...want to adopt her every weekend.  She’s always waxing poetic about how magnificent Miss K the wonderteacher is.” 

Sam pauses, her eyes unfocusing for a moment.  

“Are you okay?” 

“Yeah, I-- I’m sorry, I just thought of something, I need to go check on a few things,” Sam says hurriedly, swiping her files up into a stack.  “Sorry to disappear--”

“No worries,” Lena says, sweeping up onto her feet gracefully.  “I know my way around the place. I’ll make sure Jess calls your Agent Matthews to schedule the next meeting.”

“Thanks,” Sam says, distracted and already half out the door.  “It was good to see you.” She pauses to smile over her shoulder, waving briefly, before hurrying back to her office and flinging herself into her chair.  The motorcycle school’s website comes up immediately and she clicks over to the parent company's subpage and then, a sinking feeling deep in her stomach, into the instructors’ page, scrolling rapidly through until she lands on--

“Son of a  _ bitch _ ,” she mutters, staring at the picture of Kara Zor-el grinning out at her and groaning.

“You okay, boss?” Jeff knocks on the open door, uncertainty written across his face.

“Get me time with Nelson,” Sam says shortly.  “Like, yesterday.”

“What’s up?”

“I have to recuse myself from the undercover op,” Sam says, slumping over her desk and dropping her forehead into her hands.

“Shit,” Jeff mumbles from the door.

“Yeah, that about covers it.”

 

* * *

“No,” Nelson says shortly.

“Sir, one of the women I’m investigating is teaching my daughter every Saturday for five hours.  There’s no way I can continue to be--”

“You will finish out this week undercover,” he says, unsympathetic as always.  “It’d take 24 hours for the paperwork to clear anyways, so put in another 24 and I’ll have someone new to put on them afterwards.”

“I really don’t think that’s a good--”

“Lucky for me, that’s not your call.”  He turns to his computer, the dismissal written into his frown.  “Give me your scheduled update tomorrow before close and we’ll see how to proceed from there.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam mutters.

She doesn’t bother to close the door behind her, even when he yells after her for it.

 

* * *

Alex pulls open the door with a smile just after ten to find Sam on the front stoop, smiling but tired, and heistates for a moment before speaking.  

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” Sam says.  “Just tired is all.” She flashes a smile and kisses Alex’s cheek briefly on her way.  “How’re you?”

“I was going to ask if you wanted to go do something,” Alex says, leaning back against the door, hands behind her back.  “But we don’t have to, if you’re tired.”

“Depends on what the something is,” Sam says with a groan.  She drops onto the couch, clutching a pillow over her stomach.  

“Going to visit Kara at work?” Alex says weakly.  She winces at how it sounds, fighting against the instinct to pull the words back.  “It’s more interesting than it sounds, I promise.”

“No, that sounds great, actually,” Sam says after a moment.  “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Alex says, shrugging into her jacket and pulling Sam up to standing.  She tugs on the edge of Sam’s jacket momentarily so she can kiss her, leaning close and keeping ahold of her jacket, fingers holding without her permission.

The drive passes quickly, Alex doing her best to keep Sam talking to fill the silence, quizzing her about her obnoxious boss Nelson, her overenthusiastic coworker Jeffrey, the sneaky Matthew who’s been trying to poach one of her assignments until pulling into the empty parking garage.  Alex whips the car up to the roof quickly, and Sam falls quiet, peering out the windows at the desolate rooftop, and raises an eyebrow in Alex’s direction.

“What, are you going to ax murder me now?”

“Har har,” Alex says, pushing at her arm and pretending like her stomach isn’t full of nerves at showing this to someone she’s only known for barely a month, even if it feels like longer.  “Not so much. This has the best view, come on.”

“What?” Sam mumbles, even as she follows Alex out of the car and towards one corner of the roof.  It’s the tallest spot in an area mostly full of squat office buildings and cheap gas stations, the view stretching in every direction across the miles towards downtown Los Angeles.  

Alex fits her hands over Sam’s hips, turning her north and pushing up on her toes to prop her chin on Sam’s shoulder.  She reaches around and points towards a stretch of road a half mile off. “Watch,” she says softly, holding her breath and waiting to see if Sam pulls away from the way Alex is pressed against her back.  

She doesn’t, and Alex forces her hands to stay soft on Sam’s hips.

“Watch what-- oh,” Sam says, trailing off and mouth falling open when a motorcycle, and then another, and another, a whole scattered pack of them, blitzes into view, disappearing around corners and then reappearing, engines loud and tires squealing occasionally on the concrete.  “Street racing?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, arms shifting to wrap around Sam’s stomach gently.  There’s an easy comfort to their posture, the way Sam’s relaxed into her arms, even as Alex focuses sharply on keeping her heartbeat steady and breaths calm.  “Street racing.”

“That’s Kara down there?”

“Generally the one winning, yeah,” Alex says proudly.  She tilts her head towards the familiar sound of Kara riding, distinct even from a distance, the way she runs a gear high into every corner and kicks down two on the exit for torque.  “She prefers motocross, likes dirt more, but she’s just as much a natural at this. Picked it up in like six months, started winning in the first year.” She presses a kiss to Sam’s shoulder and swallows a smile when Sam shivers, whole body shuddering and pushing further back into her arms.

“That’s terrifying” Sam mumbles.  “How are you not scared of her getting hurt?”

Alex shrugs, body shifting against Sam’s and drawing another shiver out of her.  “I am. Always. But she loves it, and she’s incredible at it, and it might not be technically legal, but it helps us pay the rent, keep food on the table, keep her bikes in good condition.  We wouldn’t be able to afford it otherwise.”

Below them, the first of the motorcycles screams past, circling the building a block away from them with second place two turns behind.  They move towards the parking garage, disappearing around the far corner. 

“Why up here?”

“We always meet up here after,” Alex says with a shrug.  The sound of Kara's motorcycle echoes up the open structure to where Sam and Alex stand, tires whining as she takes the turns up to the roof.

Alex presses another kiss to Sam’s shoulder and a squeeze to her middle before pulling back.  “Come on, let’s say hi.” Her fingers slide between Sam’s, holding loosely, and she pulls her back towards the car as the sound increases, louder and louder and louder, until Kara’s rockets onto the roof and skids to a stop just shy of where they’re standing.

“Hey!” Kara kills the engine and flips up her visor, grinning wide enough to make her eyes crinkle.  “You brought Sam!”

“Sure did.”  Alex pulls on Sam’s hand, pulling her over until they’re close enough for her to offer a high five to Kara.  “You should go easy on these guys sometime, else they might not keep racing against you.”

“I mean, I could do that,” Kara says with a shrug.  “But not going easy on them means I just netted like four grand, so.  You know.” She yanks her helmet off and smiles, bright and tired, at Sam. “What’d you think?”

Alex bites down on the inside of her cheek, willing herself not to look as anxious as she is, even as she internally holds her breath and hopes for Sam to have enjoyed this.

“It’s so cool,” Sam says, slow and awestruck, watching with wide eyes at the easy way Kara hops off of the motorcycle.  “I had no idea anyone even did this-- how did you even get into this--”

She’s cut off when, suddenly, sirens start up and a trio of police cars skid up onto the roof.

“Shit,” Alex groans out when the only entrance off the roof is blocked.  “Shit, shit,  _ shit _ .”

“Alex,” Kara says softly, eyes wide and uncertain, the unspoken insistence that Alex can’t go back to prison written across her expression, and nausea swoops in Alex’s stomach.  

They both turn to Sam, who’s turning in a slow circle, eyes narrowed and taking in the scene of cops surrounding them on the roof. Alex pauses, distracted from her fear for a split second, because Sam doesn’t look scared, or worried, or even surprised; she’s yanked out of it when someone kicks her feet out from under her and slams her down onto the grimy concrete.

“Hey!” Sam snaps, struggling against the handcuffs they’re placing on her wrists.  “She wasn’t resisting, what the hell--”

“It’s okay,” Alex says as loud as she can from under the knee in her back and the way her face is pressed into the concrete.  “Sam, it’s okay.” 

Kara’s pushed down on the concrete next to her, manhandled roughly as she’d handcuffed even as she doesn’t resist, mouth set in a grim line and eyes unblinking, locked onto Alex’s.  Just out of her eyeline, Sam is still yelling, and somewhere in the middle of it all something warm settles in Alex’s stomach, just for a moment. 

“It’s okay,” Alex mumbles, this time to her sister, willing it to be true.  

 

* * *

Alex is pulled out of the holding cell first and marched into an interrogation room.  She doesn’t protest the too-tight grip the officer has on her arm, or when her handcuffs are threaded through the bar on the table.  It’s cold in the interrogation room, the plastic of the chair chilling her legs and back, and she hunches down over her cuffed hands as best she can to try and stay warm.

Long minutes pass alone and quiet, until the door finally opens and a detective walks in and drops into the opposite chair with a grunt.  He stares across the table at her, arms folded over his chest, disdain evident on his face.

“Alexandra Danvers,” he says eventually.  “I guess that time you spent in prison wasn’t enough for you, was it?”

Alex stays silent, neutral, doing her best to hold her temper in check.  She’s done this before, and she’s already worked through everything she remembers about local laws in her head since she was arrested, what she can bargain with to make sure Kara stays out of prison, what she has to offer.  She can keep her sister out of prison.

The door opens again, an officer poking her head in.  “The FBI is here,” she says quietly. “Wants to talk to you.”

The detective grumbles unintelligibly, waving one hand and rolling his eyes.  The door opens the rest of the way, and Sam walks in, and Alex blinks rapidly, shaking her head.  

Sam is stone-faced and square-shouldered, somehow looking even taller than she normally does, hands on her hips authoritatively, nothing remaining of the casual slump to her shoulders or perpetually uncertain set to her mouth.  Her height is nothing new but she outright towers in the frame of the door, and she glances at Alex for a barely a moment and her jaw clenches, confidence visibly wavering for a split second, before turning her attention back to the detective.  Alex stares at her, a new nausea growing in her stomach.

“Special Agent Arias,” Sam says to the detective, low and firm, and something roars in Alex’s ears, her hands clenching into fists and handcuffs rattling.  “This woman is my witness in an ongoing investigation and she’s to be released into my custody.” 

Alex’s hands shake, her body flashing hot and then cold, her stomach aching because the woman she’d been growing closer to for the last month, who’d made stir fry in Alex’s kitchen and kissed her in the doorway, held her hand over the table at dinner, brought her coffee at work unannounced on a Wednesday afternoon, has been lying to her the whole time.

The detective, face twisting with irritation, roughly unlocks her handcuffs, but Alex barely notices, rubbing at her wrists and glaring unreservedly at Sam.  She follows Sam out into the hallway, where Kara’s waiting for her and grabs her into a tight hug, her whole body shaking.

“I was so scared,” she mumbled.  “You can’t go back to prison. Ever.”  She holds tight and Alex leans into it even as she stares over Kara’s shoulder at Sam, who has the decency to look away, back ramrod straight and hands behind her back.

“Did she tell you?” Alex says quietly into Kara’s shoulder.

“Yeah.”  Kara pulls back and sniffs, arms curling around herself.  “When she pulled me out of holding.”

“Let’s go home,” Alex says, wrapping an arm around her sister.  She directs her glare back to Sam. “We’re leaving.”

“I understand,” Sam says, soft and unwavering.  “Alex, Kara, I’m sorry--”

“I don’t care,” Alex says, keeping a hold on her sister and leading them out of the hallway.  She keeps it together through collecting her car and Kara’s motorcycle from impound, teeth aching from the strain of holding her anger in place, all the way until they make it home at three in the morning.  She stumbles into the house and straight into the bathroom and throws up, over and over.

 

* * *

Sam shuts her front door softly behind her, sagging against it and pushing her hands against her temples.  The babysitter-- a junior agent, foisted upon her by Nelson for the duration of her undercover work to undermine her arguments for not being on the assignment-- disappears at just a look from her and with a soft confirmation that Ruby had been in bed since eight.

The house is quiet, and she toes out of her shoes, pulls off her jacket, leaves them all on the floor in the front hallway.  Tired feet carry her to her room, shuffling into a detour to Ruby's doorway. She slides down to sit on the floor by Ruby's bed, curling her arms around her knees and propping her chin on her knees, watching her daughter sleep and sinking into the exhaustion pulling at her shoulders and guilt pressing at her sternum.


	5. Chapter 5

Alex wakes up in her sister’s room, corkscrewed into the corner of the bed against the wall, neck aching and back protesting.  Light filters in through the curtain, bright enough to mean it’s well past when she normally gets up, and she sits up abruptly with a groan.

“Nuh uh,” Kara says, appearing in the doorway.  “Back to sleep. I called your stupid boss and told him you had food poisoning.”

“Kara, I need to--”

“You need to stay here with me today because you just found out that the girl you’ve been maybe-dating for the last month is an undercover FBI agent,” Kara says.  She points sharply at Alex. “Stay. I made coffee.”

“Bossy,” Alex mumbles, even as she pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps the blanket around her shoulders.  Kara returns with two cups of coffee and a box of Lucky Charms and wraps the blanket around herself as well. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Kara says after a long minute, once Alex has finished her coffee and stolen Kara’s and worked her way through several handfuls of dry cereal.

“No,” Alex says, separating out four marshmallows and swallowing the other cereal pieces.

“Alex,” Kara says. “Come on.  Please.”

“I was an idiot,” Alex says with a shrug.  “Nothing new there.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Kara says, mouth set in a hard line.  

“Girl shows up at my work and almost immediately asks me out, I never saw where she lives or got any details about where she works, she always came to us instead of me going to her.”  Alex ticks the list off on her fingers with a growing frown. “Totally an idiot.” She swallows the last of the coffee and untangles herself from the blankets. “I’m going to shower.”

She shuffles out of the room, waving tiredly over her shoulder when Kara calls after her, and sets the water in the shower to scalding.  It heats the whole bathroom, the shoddy ventilation working overtime to filter steam out and still failing, and she leans against the shower wall, skin red from the water and head woozy, watching water swirl around her feet and down the drain.

When she finally drags herself out of the shower, wrinkled and scalded and dehydrated, she wraps a towel around herself and shuffles to her bedroom, rubbing at her hair and yawning.  It’s not until she’s found a clean pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that she hears voices and pauses, head tilting towards the living room.

“--need to leave.”  That’s Kara, firm and solid and angry, and Alex pulls in a breath and holds it.

“Kara, please.” And that’s Sam, familiar and not, and heat burns behind Alex’s sternum.  She yanks her bedroom door open and stalks out, planting herself at Kara’s side with her arms crossed over her chest and glaring at Sam, who’s standing with unfamiliar posture, in a suit instead of jeans and a t-shirt, no purse but instead a badge clipped to one hip and a gun holstered to the other, hair twisted up neatly out of her face instead of falling loose past her shoulders.

“Get out,” Alex says sharply, quietly, fingers digging into her own arms. 

“I need to take your statements,” Sam says, linking her hands behind her back and softening her shoulders.  “I’m not going to say you shouldn’t hate me, but I need to talk to both of you about a case and frankly, my boss told me to arrest the both of you, but I’d rather not.”

“How kind of you,” Alex says with a sneer.  “Get out of our house.”

“Please don’t make me arrest you,” Sam says softly.  

“Alex,” Kara says, quiet, a hand soft on her arm.  “We should--”

“If you come in as a witness, I can offer protection,” Sam adds.  “If I have to arrest you, I can’t guarantee anything.”

“So, what, now that your cover is blown it’s either follow your orders or get fucked over?” Alex says, yanking her arm free from Kara’s hold.  “How convenient for you.”

“This wasn’t my choice,” Sam says, low and tired, posture slipping and jaw unclenching, and for a moment she slides back into the Sam that Alex had known before last night, unassuming and awkward and kind, worn down but always trying.  “But it’s only going to go one of three ways: you come in as a witness with me, I arrest you, or an agent who’s way more of a dick than me is sent in to arrest you who’s going to get you to cooperate or put you in a federal prison on a trumped up charge that will keep you there until you’re fifty.  So will you  _ please _ just come with me?”

“We’ll come,” Kara says, voice firm and hand tight on Alex’s arm.  She holds tighter to Alex’s arm when she starts to speak. “You’re not going back to prison.  It’s not happening.”

“Thank you,” Sam says.

“I’m not doing it for you,” Kara snaps.  She tugs on Alex’s elbow. “We have to change.”

Alex lets herself be led away to go change, glancing over her shoulder to where Sam is slumped against the front door, arms wrapped around her stomach and head bowed, before she slams her bedroom door behind her.

 

* * *

It’s a long drive to the FBI office, and Alex refuses to sit in the front seat, settling instead in the back of the Tahoe with Kara.  Sam doesn’t bother trying for conversation, hands tight on the wheel and eyes on the road, doing her best to keep from glancing in the rear view mirror to where Alex and Kara sit.

She leads them to her office, sliding past coworkers, taking the long way around to ensure they don’t go past Nelson’s office.  Jeff lifts half out of his chair when she passes his desk, reversing when she shakes her head firmly.

“In here,” she says quietly, opening the door to her office and letting them through.  “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She keeps her calm until she makes it to the mercifully empty kitchen and presses her shaking palms against the countertop, shoulders tight and back aching from the tension.

“Hey, boss,” Jeff says carefully, leaning against the counter at her side.  “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she says, automatic and untrue, pushing a firm smile onto her face.  “Cover’s blown. I brought them both in to talk, see if we can flip them. Can you take Kara down to get coffee?  I need to talk to Alex.”

“Sure thing,” he says.  “Anything I shouldn’t tell her?”

“Keep it vague.  Don’t mention how we found them.  Just tell her we need to ask them both a few questions and don’t want her stuck up here while I’m talking to Alex.”

“Will do.” He disappears, leaving her to the empty kitchen, and Sam lets out a shaky breath before moving to prepare two cups of coffee.  She balances them in one hand on her way back to her office and takes a deep breath before slipping inside and shutting the door behind her.  She sets one of the coffees on Alex’s side of the desk before taking her seat.

“One cream, no sugar.”  She takes a sip of her own coffee and rubs at her forehead tiredly.  It’s not even noon yet and she’s exhausted. 

Alex has the nameplate from her desk in her hands, turning it over and over.  Sam stays quiet, leaning back in her chair and drinking her coffee slowly, waiting until Alex sets it back on the desk.

“So your name actually is Sam.”

“It is.”  She takes a slow breath in and lets it out, putting her coffee down and lacing her hands together, fingers tight around one another and the knot aching in her abdomen.  “Samantha Arias.”

“One whole thing you didn’t lie about,” Alex says.  “Congratulations.”

“I also was an accounting major,” Sam says with a shrug.  

“But you don’t work for a payroll firm.  You’re an FBI agent, and you lied to me. You lied to my sister.”  There’s a dark edge to Alex’s voice, and Sam squares her shoulders against it.

“I’ve been working on a case for the last few years,” she says carefully.  “Investigating a drug cartel. I was brought in as a forensic accounting specialist to track the flow of money in and out of known affiliates, to see if I could identify any new leads.”

“What, you think we’re part of some drug cartel?”  A laugh barks out past Alex’s lips, harsh and angry.  “You’re really shit at your job.”

“Maybe I am,” Sam says evenly.  She pulls out a copy of the signed medical authorization and billing receipts from Cedars Sinai and pushes them across the table.  “So tell me why a shell company operated by said drug cartel paid half a million dollars in cash to medevac your sister out of Baja and cover all of her medical bills.”

Alex’s anger wavers, flickering into uncertainty, and something grim like satisfaction settles the ache in Sam’s stomach.  Alex picks up the papers, looking down at them slowly, forehead creasing as she bites down on her lip.

“I didn’t know there were-- it wasn’t--”

“Why is Kara so important to these people?”

“She’s not!” Alex says sharply.  “It wasn’t about her.”

“Then what was it about?”  Sam leans onto her elbows, wincing briefly when Alex recoils in her seat.  “Alex, I know you hate me, and I don’t blame you, but please believe me when I say that I was never trying to investigate you or Kara to arrest you.  That wasn’t the goal and I don’t want that to happen. I just want to know how or why she’s connected to them so I can try and arrest  _ them _ .”

“It wasn’t about her,” Alex says again, slowly, hesitantly.  “It was about me.”

“What happened in Baja?”

“Kara was racing,” Alex says after a long silence.  “There was an accident. The hospitals there didn’t-- they couldn’t-- she needed an airlift to LA.”  She pauses jaw clenched tight, and Sam holds her fingers together harder against the instinct to reach out and grip her hand.  

“Someone approached me in the ambulance.  Said they could get her a transport, a doctor, get her in the trauma center in LA.  Free of charge.”

“But for what?”  Sam’s chest burns, guilt and excitement warring with one another.  She hasn’t made this much headway in months and she focuses on the possibility of progress in the case instead of the messy swirl of guilt and anxiety at having lied to Alex and Kara.

“Some engine modifications,” Alex says.  “They told me if I could give it an extra kick and show them how to replicate it, they’d airlift her out and make sure she got the best treatment.”  She sets the papers carefully down onto the desk, pushing them closer to Sam with fingers that shake visibly. 

“It was a guy who’d approached me before for some work and I’d turned him down.  Didn’t want to risk getting caught up in anything illegal again.” She smiles, thin and sharp, and shakes her head.  “He was always at races. I figured he was one of those factory guys looking for illegal mods, or--or-- corporate shady shit, whatever.  And now it turns out that he was part of a drug cartel.”

“You didn’t know,” Sam says, her own hands shaking minutely as she shuffles the papers back into their files.  Across the desk, Alex scoffs and slumps back in her chair, her mouth pressed into a thin line and jaw tight, and Sam’s whole body wants to reach for her, to hold her, a month’s worth of familiarity and growing habit fighting against the fact that she lied and Alex would probably punch her if she did.  “Can you remember any of the modifications you made?”

“Yeah,” Alex mumbles.  “I think so.” 

Sam offers her a legal pad and a pen, setting them carefully on the desk in front of Alex.  “I’ll, um-- give you some time to work on that. There’s more coffee in the kitchen, left down the hall.  Bathroom’s to the right.”

“Yeah,” Alex says again, not reaching yet for the pen.  Sam slips out of her office into the empty hallway and takes a moment, just a moment, to drop her head back against the door and let out an unsteady breath before squaring her shoulders and calming her heartbeat and heading downstairs.

Jeff’s leaning against the wall in the lobby Starbucks, coffee in one hand and phone in the other.  He straightens up when she leans against the wall next to him, shoving his phone into his pocket and offering her his coffee.

“Looks like you need this more than me.”

“You’re not wrong,” Sam mumbles, taking a long sip.  “Where’s--”

“Right over there.”  Jeff points towards one of the tables, where Kara’s familiar profile and unusually slumped shoulders are leaned into quiet conversation with someone else.  “And you won’t believe who she bumped into.”

“Is that--”

“Yep.”

“Great,” Sam groans out.  She hands the coffee back to him and pushes off the wall, forcing confidence into her posture and striding over to where Kara Danvers is talking to Lena Luthor.

“Sam,” Lena says, smiling briefly up at her.  “I was just on my way to see you.”

“Wait,” Kara says, pushing back in her chair and putting distance between herself and Sam, mouth twisted into a frown.  “You two know each other?”

“I told you the FBI saved my life.”  Lena shrugs casually. “It was really Agent Arias here.”

“I wouldn’t say that’s exactly how it happened,” Sam says, clearing her throat carefully.  “Kara, could I borrow Lena for a moment?”

“Yeah,” Kara says, looking back and forth between the two of them slowly.

Sam leads Lena over to the other side of the restaurant, pausing only to point Jeff back towards Kara.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Lena folds her arms over her chest and raises an eyebrow, like she does when she’s putting pieces together, and Sam pinches the bridge of her nose for a long moment.

“It’s connected to the Sinclair case,” Sam says, picking her words carefully.  “She’s attached to someone who we’re trying to pull in as a cooperating witness.  It’s not going well.”

“That much is obvious,” Lena says archly.  “Since when do you go undercover?”

Sam snaps out of her exhaustion long enough to glare, sharp and pointed and brief, at her, and Lena holds her hands up, palms out.  

“Sam, we’ve been working together for years,” Lena says.  “I would call you a friend at this point, but if that’s not enough for you to keep me informed then maybe the fact that this case has resulted in my brother trying to murder me six times will be enough for you to keep me informed.”

“It’s complicated.”

“The part where you were undercover or the part where you were dating her  _ sister _ while you were undercover?”

“Leave it alone, Lena,” Sam says lowly.  “Please. If it’s going to affect you, I’ll loop you in.”

“I would hope so,” Lena says, every inch the industry titan with an iron grip on the tech world and nothing at all of the terrified woman who Sam had first met when an assassin tried to kill her.   “I assume you’re busy this morning. I’ll come back on Monday.”

“Lena, wait,” Sam says with a sigh.  “What’s up?”

“It’s likely nothing.”  Lena pulls a sheaf of papers out of her briefcase and hands them to Sam.  “There’s an old manufacturing facility I was going to offload, way up north, one of the ones Lex bought on one of his random buying sprees that we never used and couldn’t ever connect to his cartel work, so it’s just been sitting there for years buried under snow.  As soon as it was listed, I got half a dozen different offers within 48 hours. I did a little digging--”

“Do  _ not _ tell me if your idea of digging involved hacking.” 

“--and found out that all of the offers have come from various companies and shells, but originated at the same IP address.”  

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just admit to breaking multiple federal and state laws,” Sam says, thumbing through the papers. “I’ll look into it and see what I can find out.  No more snooping. You’re going to get yourself in a world of trouble and I can only help you so much.”

“In that case.”  Lena glances back over towards Kara and clasps her briefcase.  “I’ll be on my way.” She smiles at Sam, mouth tight and jaw clenched, and sets off.

“Lena,” Sam says, turning slowly.  Lena pauses, looking back over her shoulder, poker face on.  “Thank you. For this.” She holds up the papers, and takes a deep breath.  “And for what you said to her.” She tilts her head towards Kara.

“It’s just the truth,” Lena says, something close to a real smile on her face, and she carries on out of the coffee shop, leaving Sam to make her way back over to Kara. 

“Do you want to--”

“Whatever,” Kara says darkly, frown foreign on her face.  “Let’s go.” She follows Sam to the elevators, shoulders back and chin high.  The walk back to her office, looping wide from Nelson’s office once more, is uncomfortable, and Sam’s almost relieved to walk into her office and Alex’s anger.

Except for the part where, for the moment, Alex doesn’t look angry, resignation written into her shoulders and confusion into her mouth, the framed picture of Ruby on Sam’s desk in her hands.

“You have a daughter?”

Sam sucks in a sharp breath, hands snapping into fists, but she doesn’t protest when Kara pushes past her.

“Wait,” Kara says slowly.  “Ruby’s your-- you’re her--”

“I didn’t know,” Sam says, shutting the door softly behind her.  “I never wanted to be undercover, but I was, and when I found out that you were her instructor I recused myself, but the brass wanted me to finish out another 24 hours.”  She reaches out hesitantly to reclaim the picture, the frame nearly falling out of Alex’s limp hands, and she sets it carefully back in its place on her desk.

“You have a daughter,” Alex says again.  She shakes her head and presses the heels of her hands against her eyes, a short bark of laughter escaping.  “Don’t know why I’m surprised. Not like I know anything about you anyways.”

Sam’s teeth grind together, and she focuses her attention on straightening papers on her desk and taking a careful seat instead of flinching the way she wants to.

“I still don’t know what you wanted with us,” Kara says, an arm around Alex’s shoulders.

“Your names came up in connection to an ongoing investigation,” Sam says, slowly, carefully, uncertain eyes darting towards Alex.

“Baja,” Alex says with a sigh.  “It’s because of the accident in Baja.”

“What?” Kara’s nose wrinkles, the same way Alex’s would when she was lining up a shot of pool, or focusing on cooking, and Sam’s stomach turns over.  “The crash in the race? What does that have to--” She cuts herself off, eyes going wide, and detaches from Alex. “You said you did some work for one of those factory teams.”

Alex shakes her head, arms wrapped around her stomach. “I thought he was.  Maybe. But it was something else.”

“Alex,” Kara says, voice wavering.  “What did you--”

“You were never going to walk again.”  Alex’s voice shakes, thick and heavy, and Sam wishes, violently, that she’d never taken this case.  “He could get you to LA, the best doctors. Fix you up so you could still ride if you wanted to. All he wanted was some engine mods--”

“Oh, God.”  Kara slumps down into one of the chairs, head in her hands, shoulder shaking when Alex reaches out to touch her tentatively.  “This is all my fault.”

“No,” Alex says sharply.  “You didn’t-- I made a choice, Kara. I don’t regret it.”  She sucks in a loud breath when Kara shakes her head, opening her mouth again to protest, only for it to snap shut when the door to Sam’s office bursts open.

“Sorry, boss,” Jeff whisper-shouts.  “Nelson’s looking for you. He’s talking about putting Rutherford on--”

“Shit,” Sam says.  “Got it. Stall him, will you?”

“I can swing five, maybe,” Jeff says, slipping back out the door and leaving Sam with Kara and Alex watching her appraisingly.

“I have to get you guys out of here,” Sam says, sweeping her files up into her arms and shoving them into her briefcase.  “My boss wants to put Rutherford as your handler, he’s a complete bastard, he’ll throw you in jail to get what he wants.”

“Why the hell should we trust you?” Alex grips at Kara’s shoulder, knuckles visibly white.  

“Because if you get arrested my kid needs a new motorcycle instructor and she’ll never forgive me,” Sam says, one hand swirling in the air in exasperation.  “Look, you don’t have to trust me, but at least trust that I’m trying to handle this investigation  _ without _ using you as bait or putting you in jail.  So can we please just get you out of here and you can yell at me after?”

They share a short glance before Alex sighs and nods.  “Fine.”

“Great, okay, out the door, hang a left.”  Sam shoved the papers Lena had given her into her briefcase and hurried after them, sparing a glance over her shoulder to the other end of the hall, where Nelson’s back was to her, Jeff talking animatedly at him.  She ushers Kara and Alex into a stairwell at the end of the hall and down three flights, to the forensics level and the freight elevator there. She slaps angrily at the button for the parking garage, trying to push her thoughts into order to come up with a way to keep Alex and Kara out of her boss’s reach.

She doesn’t properly breathe until they’re out of the parking garage and on their way back towards Pasadena.

“Why don’t you trust your boss?” The question catches her off guard, floating up from the backseat.  She glances into the rear view mirror to where Kara is staring absently out the window and Alex is looking straight at her, jaw tight and arms folded over her chest.

“It’s not that I don’t trust him,” Sam says carefully, taking her time signaling and changing lanes to buy herself a few more seconds.  “But he’s not concerned with collateral damage. I am.”

“Yeah, you’re clearly the height of virtue,” Alex says with a sneer as Sam rolls to a stop at a red light.  “We can walk from here.” She taps Kara’s shoulder and jerks her head towards the sidewalk, opening the door and hopping out.  Sam scrambles to put her emergency lights on and out of the car after them, ignoring the blare of horns from cars behind her as she jumps in front of them. 

“Please, just--”

“We don’t owe you shit,” Alex says, low and dangerous.  

“I’m not saying you do.”  Sam holds her hands out in front of her, palms up and out, and takes a step back to avoid crowding them.  “But I want you to know that I won’t be able to stall the investigation for long to keep them from hauling you in again to get what they want.”

“We can handle ourselves--”

“Just let me try, okay?” Sam snaps.  “If you let me pull you in as a cooperating witness then I can make sure no one else at the FBI can screw with you.”

“We don’t--” Alex starts.

“We’ll do it,” Kara says over her.  She grips Alex’s arm tightly against her protest.  “We’ll help you, and when this is done, you’ll find a way to vacate Alex’s conviction.”

“Kara,” Alex says sharply.

“I can’t promise--”

“Take it or we disappear,” Kara says, calm and even, hand still gripping at Alex’s arm, and Sam pauses, waits, nods.

“I’ll talk to the lawyers.  We’ll find a way.”

“Great.”  Kara smiles, wide and bright and earnest, arm going around Alex’s shoulders easily, and Sam blinks and shakes her head at the shift.  “We’ll cooperate. On Monday. For now, we’re going home.” She sets off down the sidewalk, guiding Alex along with her.

“Also,” Kara calls over her shoulder.  “Get your kid a damn motorcycle of her own.  She’s too good not to have one.”

Sam slumps against her car, head thunking back against the window, exhaustion weighting her body down and drowning out the cacophony of car horns.

 

* * *

Alex doesn’t bother closing the door, leaving it open behind her for Kara to deal with, and stomps straight into Kara’s room to flop down onto her bed.  The coffee mugs and box of cereal are still there, and she huffily rips the box open and starts picking out cereal pieces. 

“You have to eat something else at some point today,” Kara mumbles, gathering the coffee mugs.

“Do not,” Alex says with a grunt.  She drops her head back against the wall and stares at the ceiling, listening as Kara clinks around in the kitchen, making more coffee.  Her hands are jittery from the amount of caffeine she’s had already, but she sinks further into the corner of the bed and counts the gurgles from the coffee maker until the pot’s ready and Kara returns.

“What’s the kid like?”  It comes after long minutes of Alex staring into her coffee, nose wrinkling, heat pushing through the porcelain into the palms of her hands.  

“Smart as hell,” Kara says.  She tugs at a frayed edge of the blanket, sticking her tongue out when Alex slaps at her hand halfheartedly.  “And she’s good. Really good. Got the right instincts for racing, if she wants to do it.” She pauses and tilts her head back against the wall, pulls in a deep breath.  “Talks about her mom like she’s a superhero. Thinks she’s the greatest thing in the world.”

“Yeah, well,” Alex mutters.  “Isn’t that what kids are like with their parents?”

“Yeah, totally,” Kara says flatly, following it up with half a smile.  “So say the orphans.” She holds one fist out, elbowing Alex in the side until she unwraps a hand and taps her own fist against it.  “I don’t know how to put two and two together. Ruby’s been in my class for months, and I don’t want to lie, the way she talked about her mom?  Single parent, that whole thing? I admired her a lot. And now it turns out that she’s-- well--”

“A total and completely untrustworthy liar?”

Kara wraps an arm around her, smoothly taking Alex’s coffee cup out of her hands and setting it on the bedside table so Alex can lay down, head in her lap and knees curled up to her chest.  

 

* * *

Two rolls around and Sam has half an hour until her meeting with Nelson.  She stares down at the documentation in front of her, the detailed write-up of her notes from the past month, the arrest reports from the night before, the official paperwork entering Alex and Kara into the system as witnesses for the case.

2:06.

With a definitive sigh, she slaps the folder shut and pushes out of her chair, stalking out of the office to Jeff’s desk and hurling it down.

“I’m going home,” she says shortly.  “Write-up’s in there. Tell Nelson I’ll be around for any questions on Monday.”

“What--”

“I’m going to see my daughter, Jeff,” Sam says, sharp enough that he recoils in his chair and nods energetically.  “Unless the world is ending, don’t call me until Monday.”

“Yes ma’am,” he squeaks out, clutching the file to his chest.  Sam nods once and stomps back to her office, gathering her jacket and briefcase and making a beeline for the elevator.  If she hurries, she can get ot the school before Ruby starts her after-school program.

 

* * *

“Mom?”

“Hey, baby,” Sam says, kneeling down and wrapping Ruby up into a hug.  “Think you can blow off after-school today to hang out with your mom?”

“Yeah!” Ruby bounces on her toes inside Sam’s arms, already babbling excitedly about her day, and Sam stands with a groan, taking Ruby’s backpack with her.  She waves to the after-school coordinator and points to Ruby, then grabs for Ruby’s hand and set off towards the car.

“Why don’t you have work?”

“I missed you, kiddo.”  Sam flashes a smile across the car at her, waiting until she hits a red light to reach out and poke at the ticklish spot in her ribs.  “I thought we could go to the ice rink you keep talking about.”

“Really?”

“Really really,” Sam confirms.  “What do you say? Ice skating, In-n-Out, movie night?”

Ruby gapes at her.

“I mean, if you’d rather, I can take you back to--”

“No!” Ruby yells out.  “Ice skating!”

“That’s what I thought.”  Sam pokes her in the ribs once more and sets off at the green light, the ache in her chest easing up, the nausea fading to the background.


	6. Chapter 6

“Are you okay?”  Ruby stares appraisingly from the other side of the car.

“What?”

“You normally talk a lot.”

“Gee, thanks, kid,” Sam says drily, unsure as to how her seven year old is even managing to be appraising at that age.

“Are you mad I ate the last Oreo?”

“I’m just tired, Rubes,” Sam says over a yawn.  “Someone kept me up past my bedtime watching Moana for the fifth time.”  She reaches out to swat gently at Ruby’s shoulder. Ruby wiggles closer to the door, slapping at her hand in response.

“It was your idea!”

“Was not.”  Sam sticks her tongue out, glancing away from the road for a split second, long enough to pause on her daughter, smiling wide and laughing at her, in the passenger’s seat.  “You were also up late. You promised you were gonna nap in the car, remember?”

“But I’m not sleepy,” Ruby says, even as she yawns.  

“Uh huh,” Sam says.  “Come on, seat back, close your eyes.”

“Don’t wanna,” Ruby mumbles, yawning again.  She still has a hold on Sam’s wrist and wraps her arm around it, contorting herself around in the way only a third grader can so she can use Sam’s arm as a pillow on the center console.  She’s asleep within a few minutes, leaving Sam with another hour of driving ahead of her and Kara Danvers, motorcycle instructor extraordinaire, at the end of the road.

She’s saved from the interaction by the fact that Kara’s already in the middle of a horde of students, kneeling in motorcycle gear and helping them with boot buckles and helmet straps.  Ruby bounds over to join them, a bright hello echoing out of her, and she bounces right past three other kids to hit Kara with a flying hug.

Sam watches from the other side of the car, arms over her stomach and hoping desperately that her sunglasses mask enough of her unease when Kara pauses long enough to look over towards her.  

“We should talk.”

It comes from behind her and Sam whirls around, hair whipping into her face in the desert wind, to Alex Danvers standing there, arms crossed and jaw set.  

“It’s Saturday,” Sam says after a long moment.

“So?”

“I don’t work on the weekends.”

“Ask me if give a shit about your schedule.”

Sam glares back at her, ire rising to drown out the twist of guilt in her stomach.  “Fine,” she says, tight and quiet. “But not here. Not in front of my daughter.”

“There’s a diner--”

“I know.”  Sam jerks her head towards the car.  “Let’s go.”

 

* * *

Two cups of bad coffee sit between them, steam rising from each, and Sam dumps milk into hers and watches the swirl of colors instead of Alex’s glare.

“What do you want to know?” Sam says, tired, forehead propped on her fist and free hand rotating a spoon through her coffee.

“Why did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“You know what I mean,” Alex grinds out.  

“What, take the case that could make my career?  Follow orders? Do my job?”

“So that’s what you’re going with?  The party line?” Alex pours milks into her coffee with an unnaturally heavy hand, more than she normally takes, and grimaces at the paler shade that fills the cup.  

“I don’t know what you expect me to say.”  

“Why lie?”

“Wasn’t my idea,” Sam says with a shrug.  “I mean, for me. I would have sent someone in, probably, just to poke around.  We haven’t been able to get close to anyone in this--”

“We’re not part of that,” Alex says sharply.  

“I mean, I know that now,” Sam says.  “But come on, Alex, how would I have known that?  You two have barely any footprints except for your conviction, but there’s a huge hospital bill at one of the best trauma centers in the country paid in cash from a front for the largest cartel in the world.  You can’t blame me for connecting the dots.”

“No, I can just blame you for lying.”

“I didn’t want to do it,” Sam says after a long moment.  “I know that doesn’t change the fact that I still did it.  But for what it’s worth--”

“It’s not worth anything, you’re right.”  Alex swallows half of her coffee, wincing at the heat still carrying through the over-pour of milk.  “You lied to me, to my sister. You acted like you care--”

“I did,” Sam says softly.  “I do.”

Alex jerks back in the booth, coffee sloshing out of her mug and onto the formica tabletop.  She breathes in, too loud to be calm, the muscles in her jaw working overtime and knuckles whitening around the edge of the table.

“Isn’t this supposed to be the part where you tell me it was all a lie to make it easier for everyone?”

“Is it?”  Sam laughs, the sound rattling out of her.  She slumps back into the corner of her booth, pulling her feet up onto the bench and her knees towards her chest.  “I’m not an undercover agent. I look at numbers. I’m the one who follows the money. This is the only time I’ve ever done this.”

“And what about,” Alex starts, stops, visibly sinking further into her anger.  Sam lets her head fall back against the wall, too tired to keep looking at someone who hates her now.  “What about--you and me.”

“What about it?” Sam says slowly.

“Was that part of the whole thing?”

Sam drags her head off the wall, meeting Alex’s eyes again, exhaustion weighing her shoulders down. “No,” she says after a long stretch of seconds.  “That wasn’t part of it.”

“What, just some trip to the wrong side of the tracks, seduce some ex-con so you can get out of your comfort zone?”  Alex’s hands shake visibly across the table, and Sam’s stomach wraps itself into a knot to match her knuckles.

“It wasn’t like that,” she says softly.

“Who cares if it was?” Alex takes another long gulp of her coffee, wiping recklessly at her mouth afterwards.  “You think you’re the first person to try and use some blue collar orphan--”

“That’s not what happened,” Sam says, sharp and low, her own anger building to a low hum in her chest and pushing at the guilt in her stomach.  “Don’t assume you know anything about me. Isn’t that what you’re so pissed about in the first place?”

“What, you don’t like it when people call out that you’re a spoiled suburban soccer mom?” Alex throws back at her.  “I grew up in the system. People like you used to come find us all the time. Something to fuck and leave behind. You have no idea--”

“I’m an orphan too, you know,” Sam says, fist slamming down onto the table and jaw clenching when something snaps in her chest, anger overtaking guilt and washing it away.  The coffee mugs rattle, Sam’s spilling halfway, and the table behind her quiets for a moment. “Someone left me in a cardboard box at a fire station when I was six weeks old.”

Alex stares back at her, hands finally going loose on the edge of the table and falling into her lap.  She seems to shrink, shoulders dropping and spine shortening, something hard and bright in her eyes struggling against the guilt weighing her posture down.

“I--”

“What, you didn't know?” Sam says, low and sharp and brimming with anger.  “Would it make you feel better to know that my parents didn’t want me, either?  Or that I was adopted by a psychopathic church family who threw me out when I was sixteen because I got pregnant?”  She digs her wallet out of her pocket, shaking fingers yanking too many bills out and dropping them on the table. “You only have so much moral high ground to work with here.  Don’t waste it talking out of your ass.”

She makes it out to the parking lot before her anger slips away, leaving her with weak legs and lungs gasping for breath, leaning against her car with her hands on her knees.  She sucks in deep gasping breaths, trying to force air into her lungs, eyes squeezed shut as much against the bright sunlight as the tears burning at them.

Long minutes pass before her breath comes without strain, air making its way into her lungs at a regular rate, and she pushes up off her knees just to see Alex standing by the hood of the car, hands in her pockets and sunglasses hiding half her face.

“What do you want?”

“I didn’t know,” Alex says, careful, constrained.  “And if you hadn’t lied to me and threatened to arrest me, I’d maybe apologize.  Because I should know better than to make assumptions about people like that.” She shrugs.  “But you did, so I’m not going to.”

“Heartwarming,” Sam says flatly.  “Can you just-- Saturdays are my days with my kid, okay?  I don’t care if you hate me--” She does care, she cares so much that it burns in her chest and sucks the air out of her lungs and pushes at the back of her throat, so much that her teeth ache.  “--but can I just have that? Please?”

Alex stares at her, expressionless behind the mirrored lenses, for long moments before she lets out a sigh.

“Fine. Whatever.”

“Thank you,” Sam says, rubbing at her eyes and searching for her own sunglasses.

“How old is she?”

“What?”

“Your daughter,” Alex says delicately.  “How old is she?”

Sam finally locates her sunglasses and shoves them onto her face with a sigh.  “I’d really rather not--”

“Yeah, well, I’d really rather you not have gotten me to tell you all sorts of shit about my personal life.”

“Fair enough,” Sam mumbles.  She sighs and straightens up, pulling her shoulders up to a more respectable posture and pushing her hands into her pockets.  “She’s seven. Eight in March.”

Alex pauses, jaw loosening for a moment, and Sam sighs again.

“Stop doing math,” she says.  “I miscarried when I was a teenager.  Sixteen weeks.”

“Oh,” Alex says faintly.

“I got pregnant just after I finished training for work.”  Sam focuses carefully on a fleck of gravel by her shoe. “Condom broke, pill failed.  One in a million odds, the doctor told me. After what happened I just-- I don’t know.  Couldn’t take the risk of not having another chance. I couldn’t give her up. I found a way to make it work.”

“What about--”

“There is no father,” Sam says sharply.  “Just me and Ruby.” 

Seconds click by, the sun climbing higher in the sky and beating down on Sam’s shoulders uncomfortably.  She keeps her gaze locked on the piece of gravel, toeing at it carefully, waiting for one of them to say something else.

“Did you really save Lena Luthor’s life?”

“Christ,” Sam groans out.  “How do you even--”

“Kara,” Alex says, and Sam rolls her eyes towards the sky.  

“Of course she told you,” she says with a sigh.  “Lena’s the only one who talks about it like that.”

“What did you do, then?”

“I shouldn’t be talking--”

“You want me to be a cooperating witness,” Alex interrupts.  “Right? So tell me what I’m cooperating with.”

Sam kicks the gravel away, watching as it skids over asphalt and under another car.  “She noticed some irregularities in the accounting for Luthorcorp, when it was still Luthorcorp and her brother ran it.  She reported it to the SEC, but her brother had a contact there and they ratted her out, so we stepped in. We tracked down where the money was going, tied her brother to a drug cartel.”

“The same one?”

“One and the same.”  Sam smiles, halfway, one side of her mouth kicking upwards in spite of her exhaustion, her guilt, the way Alex still looks like she’s considering punching her in the face.  “He was laundering a good chunk of their cash through one of his subsidiaries. He lost his damn mind when he found out Lena had gone to the FBI and sent someone to shut her up.  I was in her office when he did and helped her get to the FBI. She’s been cooperating ever since.”

Another long silence slides by, buoyed by the crunch of cars moving in and out of the parking lot, kicking stray gravel pieces up under the tires as they do, and Sam stares down at her shoes, exhausted and frustrated, waiting for Alex to say something.

She doesn’t, moving instead, eventually, towards the car she’d parked four spots away from Sam.

“Where are you going?”  Sam doesn’t look up, instead balling her fists into her pockets and contemplating the scuffed toe of her shoe instead of the furious set to Alex’s jaw.

“It’s the weekend,” Alex says after a moment.  “You don’t work on the weekend.” She plops down into the driver’s seat and peels out of the parking lot without hesitation, leaving a lingering scent of burnt rubber and bad coffee behind her.  Sam watches her car-- unremarkable save for the enormous brake rotors peeking out behind the hubcaps and the engine rumbling like a charger twice its size and age-- disappear out of the lot and towards the highway, listens to the fading decrescendo of acceleration as it disappears out of sight, frustration and relief battling in her stomach and settling into something that resembles nausea.  Minutes skid past, sunlight heavy against her shoulders and the back of her neck, until the ache in her legs pushes her to uproot her feet and settle into her car, inhaling sharply against the scent of overheated cheap leather and waiting for her pulse and hands to settle themselves so she can drive. There’s a seven year old waiting for her.

 

* * *

Sam’s car doesn’t appear in the rearview for the whole drive back to the school, leaving Alex with nothing but road noise and the comforting hum of the engine underneath her.  She takes the exit on autopilot and cruises to an easy stop in the instructor spot that Kara normally parks in, rolling to a stop and shutting the engine down with habitual movements.  

Outside, the enormous flat dust bowl that makes up the training track stretches out into the blurry horizon, broken periodically by too-small motorcycles with plastic wheels, piloted carefully, uselessly, by figures dwarfed by their comically large helmets.  Somewhere in the dusty mess is Samantha Arias’s daughter, an eight year old with her smile and bright eyes, who idolizes Alex’s sister and has a natural talent with a motorcycle. 

Somewhere behind her is Samantha Arias herself, FBI agent, forensic accountant, capable liar and apparent hothead with a deeper history than Alex could have predicted.

Alex sucks in a breath, hot desert air streaming into her lungs through the open windows, and lets it out with a groan.  The session outside is wrapping up, the kids running laps on their own, Kara and the other instructors out on the course with flags and shouted encouragement, windmilling kids along towards the finish line.  

Her sister, the teacher, the racer, the athletic prodigy, who was taken out in a desert race in 2009 by an overzealous supposed veteran refusing to move out of her line, even though she had the right of way, even though they weren’t racing in the same class, who crashed them into a collection of boulders at high speed.  Her sister, who’d landed at the base of the heap, pinned between rocks and two motorcycles, whose femur had splintered into too many pieces to count, whose pelvis had snapped, whose ligaments had ripped themselves to pieces in the face of the impact. Her sister, who had Alex had run away with when she was twelve, who she’d done her best to care for ever since, who Alex had struck a deal for to provide transport and care and cash, so much cash, to pay her bills.  Her sister, who she would make the same deal for in a heartbeat, even now, even knowing that she’d potentially fueled a drug cartel that held the entirety of the Los Angeles underbelly in its grips. 

Her sister, helmet hanging from one hand and smile wide and bright, who’d struck a deal of her own to clear Alex’s conviction, who’d held herself high to protect them both when Alex couldn’t, high fiving students and ruffling sweaty matted hair when she could.

One of the students launches herself at Kara, landing with a discernible  _ whoomp _ in her arms, and Kara still smiles, still laughs, still holds her tight and compliments her loud enough that it floats towards the parking lot for Alex to hear, as if her mother hadn’t lied to them both and strongarmed them into working for her.

Nausea turns in Alex’s stomach, watching Kara kneel down and hug Ruby Arias, her hands tight on the heating steering wheel even with the engine off.  

The kid-- Sam’s kid-- Ruby-- detaches from Kara and shelves her helmet and sets off at a run, dead center towards Alex’s car.  She skids right past it, motorcycle boot clumsy and her legs not strong enough to keep the momentum under control, right into Sam, just barely visible in the rear view mirror as she drops down to her knees to catch Ruby.

“Hey, stinky,” she says with a too-wide smile, long arms holding her daughter tight.  Alex’s stomach twists again, the leather of the steering wheel creaking under her hands, as Ruby starts babbling incoherently, too fast to understand, too excited to fault, and Sam nods at all the right places, gasping when she should, holding her hand out for an exaggerated high five.   

Alex watches unabashedly, frowning even at the careful and cheerful way Sam interacts with her daughter, long after they’ve disappeared into Sam’s car and it’s vanished towards the highway.  Her frown doesn’t break until Kara raps at the roof of the car, prying the passenger’s side door open and plopping down into it in shorts and a t-shirt.

“Why do you look like someone shit in your coffee?”

“Do you teach your students with that mouth?” Alex throws back, turning the engine over too many times and revving the engine.  She pulls out of the parking lot, adjusting her sunglasses and the radio for long seconds, before speaking again. “I talked to her.”

“Alex,” Kara says with a sigh.

“I know,” Alex says sharply.  “I know. I just-- I don’t know.  Needed to say  _ something _ .”

“Do you feel better now?”

“No,” Alex mumbles.  “I really don’t.”

“Told you it was a bad idea,” Kara says, light and singsonging.  

Alex accelerates onto the highway, pulling ahead of a long line of cars and not letting up until the speedometer is just shy of a hundred.


	7. Chapter 7

After a long Sunday spent in the garage, making adjustments to her car, and Kara’s car, and the motorcycles, and also the neighbor’s rickety old lawnmower because why not, Monday comes, as it does, and Alex drives into work on autopilot.  Her boss is lecherous and crude, as always, and the customers are impatient and irritated, as always. It’s almost like nothing’s changed.

Alex cuts out at one for lunch, walking the two blocks to the local diner where she meets Kara every other day.  Kara’s waiting in the parking lot, leaning against her car in a different parking spot than normal, her usual taken up by an obnoxiously tinted Dodge idling in the heat.  

“Can’t believe Donna let someone park in your spot,” Alex says, wrinkling her nose at Kara’s grumble of irritation.

“Don’t wanna talk about it,” Kara mumbles without looking away from her phone. “Come on, I’m hungry.”

Their usual table, at least, is waiting for them; Donna, cantankerous as she often is, nonetheless has their order ready barely after they’ve sat down-- a cubano for Alex, extra pickles on the side; an enormous plate of something approximating pasta for Kara-- and drops it off with her usual grunt.

“Thanks, Donna,” Kara says with a wide grin, as she does.

It’s almost like nothing’s changed.

“We should talk about the thing,” Kara says once Donna’s disappeared, fork already corkscrewing into her pasta.  “You had all weekend.”

Almost.

“I don’t want to,” Alex grumbles. 

“We need to--”

“We need to eat lunch,” Alex says, biting off half a pickle deliberately. “And talk about how the suspension changes are doing.”

“The suspension is fine--”

“What about the rear brake?  I made it a bit more sensitive--”

“Everything on the bike is great,” Kara says loudly, over the sound of her phone beeping.  She automatically picks up her phone and responds to a text message rapidly, blindly twirling her fork into the pasta as she does.  “Now can we talk about--”

“We cannot.”  Alex raises an eyebrow and takes a too-big bite of her sandwich, smiling wide and fake around it.  “Because I don’t want to. Why don't we talk about whoever it is you're texting all the time now with a dumb smile on your face?”

“Butthead,” Kara mumbles.  She smacks her phone face down on the table, blush giving her away, and sticks her tongue out across the table.  Donna slaps the top of her head with her order pad as she walks by.

“Keep that in your head in my restaurant,” she says without looking.

Alex laughs into her sandwich, nearly choking on a bite, when Kara flails indignantly and almost knocks over her water glass in reaction.  Kara lets her steer the conversation towards complaining about work, trading her own stories of training from the morning, and Alex gets a high five from Johnny the busboy and a  _ “Stop tracking grease into my restaurant,” _ from Donna on her way out, like she always does.

It’s almost like nothing’s changed.

 

* * *

Sam’s desk is covered in paperwork, filled to the brim with the documentation she needs to officially list Alex and Kara as witnesses for the case.  It would be easier if they were actually actively cooperating, leaving her with something more than one day’s worth of interviews and a shoddy papertrail, but Sam’s not ready to deal with their anger and glares again quite yet.  

She pauses in her headache to take a sip of coffee, spluttering when it’s cold and congealed in her mug.  She’d worked through lunch, door shut and head down, and hadn’t left the office since her coffee refill at just after ten.  The clock on the wall clicks over to 6:14, fifteen minutes before she has to leave to get Ruby from her soccer practice. 

“Jeff,” she yells, trusting her voice is loud enough to reach through the closed door to where Jeff’s desk sits.  It is, and he pops into her office like a gopher, poking his head through the door he’s not willing to open entirely.  “Come in, come on, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Sorry, boss,” he says, sliding inside and shutting the door behind him.  “What’s up?”

“I need you to submit all of this.”  She scrapes the paperwork together from the myriad of stacks on her desk, fumbling with sheets to put them in the proper order.  “Tonight, if you can. I’d like for it to go through before the morning.” She props her chin in her free hand and bites back a yawn, holding the paperwork out with her free hand.  “I have to go pick up--”

“Ruby from soccer practice, right,” he finishes for her.  “Will do.”

“You’re a godsend, kid,” she mumbles.  She pushes up from her desk, joints protesting as she does, and sets to gathering her keys and phone.  The phone rings just as she’s about to pick it up, and she lets out a groan at the familiar number flashing on the screen before she answers.  “Hello?”

“I think someone’s following me,” Alex says by way of greeting.

“What?”  Sam drops back down into her chair.  

“The same car’s been around all day.  I saw it at lunch, and it was on the street across from work for a few hours, and it just drove by our house.”  Her voice is pitched higher than normal, restrained and tight, and Sam’s stomach drops out. 

“Stay inside.  I’ll be right there.”  She hangs up before Alex can protest, unlocks the drawer in her desk to retrieve the gun she hates carrying.  “Change of plans, Jeff,” she says distractedly. “Can you pick up Ruby? Jackie’s mom Simone drove her to practice, she knows the deal.  Tell her I sent you and Ruby will recognize you, it’ll be fine. Bring her back here.”

“Is everything--”

“Just go,” Sam snaps.  She shoves past him and half-runs towards the elevators.

 

* * *

Alex grips tighter to her phone and glances out the window again, to where the same car she’d seen all day is parked across the street.  She glances back to where Kara’s sitting on the couch, hands clenched into fists in her lap and back ramrod straight, and then to her watch.  It’s been eighteen minutes since she called Sam, since Sam said she was on her way, but Sam’s office is downtown and so far away, so far from where they are, so--

The shrieking edge of a siren reaches her ears, and Alex bites down on the inside her cheek and chances another look outside, just in time to see the parked car screech away from the house.  

“They’re leaving,” she mumbles, not looking away.  The siren grows louder, not enough to drown out the sound of Kara letting out a heavy breath, and a familiar black SUV blasts around the corner with blue lights flashing from the windshield.  “She’s here.”

“Thank God,” Kara mutters, and Alex lets out a breath, slumping against the wall as Sam’s car skids to a stop in front of their house and she launches out of the driver’s seat.  The now-familiar knot in Alex’s stomach loosens just a bit at Sam’s arrival. Behind her, Kara scrambles off the couch for the front door, and outside Sam’s long legs have eaten up half the space from the street to the front door when rubber squeals around the corner and times slows down just enough for Alex to recognize the same car that had been following her all day and the rear window rolling down, Kara opening the front door for Sam, the flash of realization on Sam’s face as she starts to turn.

“Kara!” Alex yells, flinging herself towards the door and her sister, tackling her away from opening it just as a gun starts to fire.

“Sam, we have to get Sam--”

“Stay down!” Alex snaps out, shoving Kara down onto the ground and scrambling back towards the door to peer out towards the front yard.  Sam’s back by her car, back flat against the door and chest heaving with each breath, eyes wide and gun in hand. 

“Get inside!” Sam shouts over the sound of gunfire rattling into the side of her car.  “Go!” 

Alex yanks her head back inside and flattens herself against the wall.  “Get the lockbox,” she breathes out, pointing one shaking hand towards the crates full of spare engine parts she keeps in the living room.  

“You got rid of--”

“Kara, please,” Alex says tightly.  “Hate me for it later, just get me the fucking gun!”

Kara’s mouth snaps shut and she reaches out with a foot and hooks it into the edge of the crate to pull it towards her with a groan.  Bullets blast through the windows and hit the opposite wall in the living room, and Kara lets out a curse as she dumps the crate on its side and finds the lockbox in the bottom and shoves it towards Alex.

Alex’s hands shake as she dials in the combination and methodically loads the entirely illegal gun she’s had since she got out of prison.  She takes a deep breath and locks eyes with Kara for a split second, waiting for her to nod before she breathes and leans around the door to fire a handful of shots towards the car in the street.

Sam’s head snaps around at the sound of the gun firing, and Alex motions hurriedly for her to run.  She hesitates for a split second, fury written across her features, before sprinting for the door. Another series of shots sounds off from the street and she dives for the house, letting out a yell when a bullet skids along her shoulder as she does.

Alex kicks the door shut and yanks at Sam’s arm until she’s pressed against the wall between her and Kara.

“You have a  _ gun _ ?” Sam hisses out.  “You’re a fucking felon, Alex, do you have any idea--”

“Arrest me later,” Alex says, rolling her eyes.  “But first you have to get us out of here.”

Another spray of bullets hits the external walls, the house groaning under the impact, and Sam winces.  “Back door?”

“Leads out to the yard, fence, neighbor’s yard,” Kara recites.  “We can’t--”

“I’ll buy you some time,” Sam says shortly.   “I called in the LAPD, they’re on their way. They’ll box the whole area in, get to one of them.  They’re expecting you.”

“You can’t just try and fight off--”

“If you don’t go now I will throw you in prison  for a decade, Alex, I swear to God,” Sam snaps. “Go!”

She shoves at Kara, pushing her towards Alex with her jaw clenched and knuckles white around her gun.  Kara’s teeth grind together and she yanks at Alex’s arm, pulling her towards the rear of the house. Alex looks back over her shoulder as she’s pulled along, to where Sam’s peering out the broken windows and firing another series of shots.  Alex stumbles around the corner into the kitchen and scrambles after Kara out into the backyard. The sound of gunshots follows them as they vault over the low fence separating their yard from the neighbor’s and Alex tucks the gun into the back of her jeans as best she can as she runs with her hand locked in Kara’s, heading towards the sirens.

“She’s going to be okay,” Kara gasps out as they run.  “Right?”

Alex doesn’t respond, gripping tighter at Kara’s hand and pushing her stride longer to match pace.  They skid around a corner and to a stop when a cop launches out of his car with his gun out and pointed at them.  Alex steps automatically in front of Kara with her hands up, trying to yell over his demands and explain they were with the FBI and he’s already got cuffs out for them when a black SUV like Sam’s screeches to a stop in front of them.

“Hey!” He’s familiar, the gangly man waving his badge angrily towards the police officer.  “They’re with me.”

“Do we know that one?” Alex mutters out of one side of her mouth, hands still up and out.  

“He’s on Sam’s team,” Kara says.  “He’s the one who took me down to the coffee shop where I met--”

“Right,” Alex says, finally lowering her arms.  “Nice of him to show up.”

“They’re cooperating witnesses in our investigation,” he says to the cop, glaring down from his own considerable height.  “So stop trying to arrest them and let them come with me.”

The cop lets out a huff and shoves his handcuffs back into their case, lowering his weapon and holstering it.  Sam’s agent lets out a huff of his own and turns to them, mouth set in a thin line.

“Where’s Agent Arias?”

“She stayed in the house to give us time,” Alex says quietly.  His jaw clenches visibly and one hand goes to his weapon, only for him to hesitate and then shake his head.  

“Come on, I have to get you out of here,” he says sharply.  “In the car, let’s go.”

“You can’t just leave her in there!” Alex bursts out, fingernails digging into Kara’s forearm.

“She’s the one who told me to keep you safe,” he throws back.  “Work with me here, will you?”

Another gunshot rings out and a window shatters and Alex yanks Kara behind her, and the agent jumps in front of the both of them with his weapon already out as footsteps grow louder, and suddenly Sam staggers around the neighbor’s house, running straight towards them.

“In the car, Jeff!” she yells, sprinting as best she can, and a gunshot sounds from behind her.  Sam dives past Jeff and tackles Alex and Kara towards the car, the three of them crashing down onto the asphalt as bullets hit the car right where they’d been standing.  “Get in, get in, get in,” Sam grinds out, pushing them towards the door and yelling for the cop to get his weapon out and help. 

Alex throws Kara into the backseat of the SUV and flings herself in after, landing on top of her with a grunt.  The door slams behind them, Sam kicking it shut as soon as they’re inside, and Alex pushes Kara down to the floor and drops down on top of her.

“You’re hurt,” Kara says, her voice shaking as much as the hand hovering near the ripped skin on Alex’s elbow.

“It’s just a scrape,” Alex mutters.  The gunshots stop abruptly, and then the front doors open and Sam and Jeff clamber in.

“Are they gone?”

A bullet hits the car door, and Sam lets out a thin laugh.  “Nope.” She shoves at Jeff’s shoulder. “Drive, man, come on.”

“Local PD is en route,” Jeff says as he hits the gas and the car lurches into movement. 

“Where’s--”

“Office,” Jeff says grimly.  “She’s with--”

“I should fucking fire you,” Sam snaps.  

In the backseat, Alex pushes up to sitting, pulling Kara with her and moving silently into the seats.  There’s an anger in Sam’s voice she hasn’t heard before, deep and shaking and dangerous, so much more dangerous than when she’d blown up at Alex in the desert.

“I’m an FBI agent, not a babysitter, and you needed help,” Jeff throws back.  “You’re welcome.”

“You’re  _ my _ agent and I gave you an assignment,” Sam grinds out.  “I swear to God, if anything happens to her you’re going to be on desk duty until you go blind.”

“I’ll take it,” Jeffy says with half a smile.  He blows through an intersection and onto the highway, and Sam glares at him but takes the phone he offers her, calling for an escort back to the office.  

“You guys okay?” Sam says after a long minute, craning around to check on Kara and Alex.  Alex grips tighter to Kara’s hand and nods, too shaken to care that she surely looks terrified.

“You’re bleeding,” Kara says, too loud for the silence of the car, leaning forward as best she can and reaching towards the growing stain on the grey of Sam’s blazer.

“Shit, boss,” Jeff mutters.  

“Some asshole shot me,” Sam says with a flat laugh.  She holsters her gun finally and presses her hand to her bleeding shoulder with a groan.  “It’s a graze. Not a big deal.”

“You got  _ shot _ ,” Kara says.  “That’s a big deal.”

“Only if it kills you,” Sam says, shrugging her good shoulder.  

A cadre of police cars surround them, blue light flashing into the car and flickering over the exhausted set to Sam’s mouth, and Alex’s teeth grind together.  She holds tighter to Kara’s hand to keep herself from shaking and focuses on her shoes instead of the way Sam’s still turned around to watch them, pale and tense and bleeding from a bullet she took protecting them.

 

* * *

The FBI building is different at night, darker and emptier, the fluorescent lighting uncomfortably harsh without sunlight to soften it.  Alex doesn’t let go of Kara’s hand as they’re whisked along under armed guard from the parking garage up onto the familiarity of Sam’s office and the conference room across the hall from it.  

“You’re bleeding,” Sam points out from where she’s sprawled in a chair in the conference room, a wad of bandages held to her shoulder.  

“You’re one to talk,” Alex says, raising an eyebrow.  “I’m not the one who got shot.”

“Uh huh,” Sam says.  She pulls the bandages away and sits forward in her chair, moving slowly to take her jacket off.

“You should probably sit still.”  Alex lets go of Kara’s hand without thinking about it, moving automatically to help Sam ease out of her jacket.  

“Yeah, well, I need to go see someone and can’t show up bloody,” Sam says with a grunt.  She pulls grimly at the hole in her shirt, frowning as she tries to rip it away.

“Here, let me,” Alex mumbles, producing the pocketknife she keeps in one pocket and cutting through the shirt fabric easily.  She discards the shredded sleeve and gathers the bandages, holding them firmly to Sam’s shoulder. “You should probably get this stitched up.”

“Later,” Sam says.  “Can you just-- tape it up for now.”

“That’s not--” Kara starts.  “I mean, you haven’t even cleaned it.”

“Later,”  Sam says again.  She claims the tape for herself and clumsily rips off a piece, slapping it over the bandage carelessly.  

The conference door opens and Jeff reappears with a black hoodie for Sam, who accepts it gratefully and shrugs into it with a groan.  

“Where is she?”

“Maddie’s office,” he says quietly, glancing over to Alex and Kara.  

“Stay with them for a minute, will you?”  Sam pushes up to her feet and tucks her hands into the pocket of the sweatshirt.  “And can you get some first aid for them?”

“Seriously?” Jeff and Kara say at the same time, and Sam smiles in spite of the situation.  She shoots a glance over towards Alex, who looks torn between laughing at Kara and Jeff and glaring at Sam, and settles instead for a halfhearted scowl.

Sam slips out of the room and hurries down the hallway to the junior agent’s office Jeff had mentioned, poking her head in the door to find Ruby fast asleep on Maddie’s couch, an adult-sized suit jacket draped over her.

“She conked out half an hour ago,” Maddie whispers from her desk.  

“Thank you,” Sam says softly,  moving carefully with her injured shoulder to kneel in front of Ruby and push her hair gently out of her face. “Hey, sweetie.”

Ruby wakes slowly, blinking sleepily through a yawn and smiling, easy and drowsy, up at Sam.

“Mr. Jeff said you had to work late,” she mumbles.

“Yeah, I did, I’m sorry about that,” Sam says quietly.  “And I’m going to have to work some more tonight, I think.”

“Are we staying here?”

Sam shoots a glance towards Maddie, who shrugs and nods, and then back to Ruby.  “No, not here, baby,” she says. “I have a surprise for you, actually.” She reaches out carefully, steeling herself for the inevitable stab of pain in her shoulder when Ruby climbs into her arms.  “Say goodnight, Rubes.”

“Goodnight, Miss Maddie,” Ruby says through another yawn.  Maddie waves from her desk, and Sam mouths another  _ thank you _ her way before slipping out of the office and returning to her own.  She settles Ruby on the couch in her office and blindly dials a familiar number from her desk phone.

“This is Agent Arias,” she says quietly.  “Is she still in the office? I have a question.”

 

* * *

It’s barely twenty minutes after hanging up the phone that Lena appears in the lobby of the FBI building.  Sam stands tiredly with Ruby asleep in her arms, and offers the closest thing to a smile she can muster.

“Thank you for doing this,” she says.  “I don’t know where else she’d be safe.”

“Of course,” Lena says, less composed and more earnest than Sam’s seen her since they day they met.  “Nothing will happen to her, I promise.” She pauses, mouth opening and closing, and Sam sighs.

“I don’t know yet,” she says, quiet and slow.  “Someone came after the Danverses, and I need to get them somewhere safe.  I don’t want anyone to be able to follow me to her.”

“When you say  _ came after _ ,” Lena starts carefully.

“Guns blazing and all,” Sam says, shaking her head and then wincing when it aggravates her injury.  Lena’s eyes go wide, mouth opening to speak, and Sam shakes her head more deliberately. “I’m fine,” she says quickly.  “But you understand why--”

“Of course,” Lena says quickly.  She holds her arms out for Sam to transfer Ruby over, waiting as Sam presses a kiss to Ruby’s forehead for a long moment.

“This is my friend Lena,” she says softly, hand stroking along Ruby’s hair as she stirs enough to open her eyes.  “You’re going to have a slumber party with her for a few days, okay?”

“You’re not coming?”

“Not yet, baby,” Sam says.  She kisses Ruby’s forehead again. “ I love you.  Be good for Lena, okay? Do whatever she tells you.  Promise?”

“I promise,” Ruby says, already snuggling into Lena’s shoulder.  

“Thank you,” Sam says softly, hand gripping Lena’s briefly.  “Really.”

“You know how to get in touch with me when this is resolved,” Lena says, jaw set firm.  

“I do.”  Sam nods. “Please be careful.”

“I will,” Lena promises.  She nods curtly and hurries out of the lobby, disappearing with a sleeping Ruby into a car and leaving Sam alone in the lobby.

 

* * *

Jeff and Nelson are in with Kara and Alex when Sam makes it back upstairs, and she swallows a swoop of irritation at Nelson’s presence when she steps into the conference room.

“How did--”

“We don’t know, sir,” Sam says sharply.  “Working on it. Until we figure it out, they need to be somewhere safe.”

“Yeah, no shit,” he says.  He heaves out a sigh and waves his hand dismissively.  “Go, get them to a safehouse. I’ll make sure the paperwork is in order and get a protective detail for you.”

“Sir.”  Sam nods at Jeff and jerks her head towards the door.  He hurries out towards her office, leaving Nelson in with Kara and Alex.

“What are you--” 

“Alex,” Sam says, careful and precise.  “I’ll get you up to speed as soon as I can, okay?  Just give me a few minutes.” She slots her eyes over towards Nelson for a split second and prays Alex understands her, and waits for long seconds as Alex’s jaw clenches and she nods.  Sam hurries out of the room to her office and shuts the door behind her,letting out a heavy breath as she does.

“What--”

“There’s a leak,” Sam says hurriedly.  “Has to be. No way these people have the manpower to stalk every person they’ve ever coerced into helping just on the off chance the talk to the feds ten years later.  Someone told them we’re talking to Alex and Kara.”

“Oh,” Jeff says faintly, color rushing out of his face abruptly.  “Shit.”

“It might be Nelson,” Sam adds.  “I don’t know, but I sure as hell don’t trust him.”

“You really think--”

“I just said I don’t know, Jeff,” Sam snaps.  She presses her hand to her shoulder again, holding tight against the pain, and lets out another slow breath.  “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Jeff says with a small smile.  “You really need to get that--”

“Later,” Sam says, shaking her head.  “I’m going to tell Nelson we’re going to the house in Alhambra.  You take Kara to the one in Riverside, okay? And I’ll take Alex to the one in Anaheim.”

“You can’t drive that far right now,” Jeff starts to say, only to wilt under Sam’s glare.  “Yes ma’am.”

“Okay.”  Sam nods sharply.  “I’ll reach out tomorrow and we can figure the rest out from there.  For now we just need them somewhere safe.”

“Will do,” Jeff says with a nod of his own.  “But will you  _ please _ at least disinfect that?”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Sam says, rolling her eyes.  “Go tell Nelson I’m putting in the updates for the house in Alhambra, will you?”


	8. Chapter 8

Jeff reappears in the conference room, his entrance drawing a flinch from Kara, and Alex glares at him and the heavy hand he’d used to open the door.

“Sorry,” he hurries out.  “Didn’t mean to scare you.  Sir, Agent Arias said to tell you we’re taking them to Alhambra for the night.”

“I’ll make sure it’s in order,” he says, rolling up onto his feet from where he’d been sprawled in a chair.  He nods to Alex and Kara, and Alex bites down the instinct to flip her middle finger his way. 

“How long will we have to be there?”  Alex bites the words off and holds tight to Kara’s hand, still shaking in hers.  

“Hopefully not too long,” Jeff says, apologetic and uncertain as he holds the door open for them.  “Can you come with me now?”

“We have lives, you know,” Alex says sharply.  “Jobs. Places to be that don’t involve this bullshit you pulled us into.”

“I’m sorry,” Jeff says again.  “We’re doing the best we can--”

“Your best got our house shot up and  _ lied _ to us,” Alex throws out at him, even as she shoves past him, Kara in tow, and heads towards Sam’s office.

Sam’s standing behind her desk, typing furiously, and doesn’t look up when they burst in.  “Did you tell him?”

“I did,” Jeff says carefully.  “We ready?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, hitting the enter key angrily.  She straightens up to her full height, leaning back until her back cracks, and lets out a quiet groan.  “Let’s go.” 

“To Alhambra?” Alex says snidely.  “Someone shot us up in LA so you’re taking us to Alhambra?  Great tactics there, general.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you have a better fully secure place to go, Miss Danvers?” Sam practically snarls, and Alex almost physically recoils, stepping back half a step without meaning to.  “I didn't think so. Let’s go.”

They’re hustled down to the basement again, Sam leading them with long angry strides and Jeff bringing up the rear, leaving Alex to hold onto Kara’s hand in the middle.  They bypass a series of cars before making it to one with sloppily tinted windows. 

“Insult to injury,” Alex mumbles, and it nearly draws a smile out of Kara, making it worth the irritated eyeroll from Sam.  

“In you go,” she says shortly, yanking the backseat doors open and gesturing impatiently for them to get in.  They’ve barely all made it inside before she’s got the engine started and is speeding out of the garage.

“I thought we were going to Alhambra,” Alex says ten minutes into the drive as they head south.

Sam doesn’t answer, instead pulling over onto a sidestreet abruptly and killing the engine.

“We’re splitting up,” she says quietly, finally turning back to meet Alex’s gaze and having the decency to look guilty about it.

“What?”It’s the first thing Kara’s said in hours, and both her hands grab for Alex’s.  

“Someone is feeding them information,” Sam says carefully.  “I have an idea of who it is, but just to be safe, it’s better for us to go to different safehouses.”

“Someone is feeding them-- you think the FBI has a mole?” Alex says.  “And you still expect us to trust you?”

“Alex,” Kara says quietly. 

“No way,” Alex says.  “If they can’t even keep their own shit in line then how--”

“We have to trust them,” Kara says, her voice cracking around the words, and Alex’s mouth snaps shut.  “Alex, please, these people clearly don’t have a problem killing you to keep you quiet, so just-- please.  Go with Sam.”

“I don’t want you to be alone,” Alex says stubbornly.  

“I won’t be,” Kara says with a smile.  “I’ll have Jake over there.”

“Jeff,” he mumbles.

“Whatever,” Alex says.  “Kara, we don’t have to-- are you sure--”

“I need to know you’re safe,” Kara says firmly.  “And I trust Sam to keep you safe until we figure this out.”

“Kara,” Alex says, her voice shaking and hands holding impossibly tight.  

“We’re gonna be okay,” Kara says with a definitive nod.  “So let’s get this done, yeah?”

Alex looks up to where Jeff is watching them in the rear view mirror and sets her jaw.  “If you let anything happen to her I will personally beat you to death with a torque wrench and your boss here will have to let me because she’s already in my shit books.”

“Yes ma’am,” Jeff squeaks out when Sam doesn’t say anything but shrug and nod along with Alex’s threat.  

“I love you,” Alex mumbles into Kara’s shoulder, hugging her tight and holding on.  “Be careful.”

“Don’t do anything stupid and heroic, okay?” Kara clings to her shirt, hands shaking even as she smiles against Alex’s neck.  “I love you. We’re gonna be fine.” She pulls back and casts her own glance to the front seat and where Sam’s carefully not looking at them.  “I don’t have to tell you--”

“I’ll die a slow ugly death if she gets hurt,” Sam finishes for her.  “Point taken.” She turns to Jeff and nods. “You should go. Wait for me to contact you.”

“You got it, boss,” he says with a nod.  He hurries out of the car and opens Kara’s door for her.  “Ma’am.”

“Don’t you dare call me ma’am,” Kara mutters as she pops up to stand next to him.  It’s enough to draw something of a smile from Alex, and she watches as Jeff hurries Kara down the block and into a parked car.

“Alex,” Sam says softly.  

“Not yet.”  Alex doesn’t look away, squinting in the dark until Kara’s in the car and they drive off.  She lets out a shaking breath and climbs into the front seat. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“First you have to give me that gun,” Sam says, deceptively calm.

“What--”

“What, you thought I’d forgotten?” Sam drops her head back against her seat and rolls it over to stare Alex down.  “Alex, you’re a  _ felon _ and you have an unregistered gun.  Just give it to me and no one will ever need to know about it, okay?  It’ll never make it into any report.”

Alex stares back at her, waiting for Sam to break, to flinch, to give up, but nothing gives and she’s left to dig the pistol out from her waistband and offer it across the car.  Sam takes it and smoothly ejects the clip and checks the chamber, her movements easy and automatic. 

“We don’t live in the safest neighborhood,” Alex says quietly.  “And we have expensive motorcycles and tools. We’ve been robbed too many times not to--”

“I don’t blame you,” Sam says with a shrug.  She starts the car and heads back towards the highway.  “I mean, I hate guns, but I get why you’d have one.”

“You’re an FBI agent and you hate guns,” Alex says slowly, one eyebrow lifting.

“I’m a forensic  _ accountant _  White collar crime,” Sam corrects.  “Yeah, I did the training, but like-- I was never supposed to need one.  It was a formality. If I wanted to do more than to do boring analytics work I needed to be an agent, which meant the gun and badge.  Doesn’t mean it’s what I wanted.”

“Yeah, well,” Alex says dully.  “Who gets what they want anyways?”

 

* * *

Alex wakes up late in the night, so late it’s almost early, the bedroom in the safehouse dark save for a sliver of light from a distant streetlight slicing across the foot of the bed.  She’s still in the same clothes, dirty and grease-stained with the new addition of some splattered drops of blood on one thigh, a lingering memento of trying to bandage the gunshot wound in Sam’s shoulder.  

The scrape on her elbow is bandaged, and something turns in her stomach as she inspects the handiwork.  It’s neat and meticulous and had to have been done by Sam, who apparently cleaned and bandaged the wound while Alex slept.  

Alex pushes off of the bed, socks sliding on the fake hardwood.  Her boots are by the door, set neatly parallel to one another. She ignores them and slides out of the half-open door, passing the tiny bathroom on her way.  The living room that makes up the front half of the house is sparsely filled, little more than a couch and a chair and a mismatched table arranged haphazardly in the direction of the grimy too-small window hovering over a squat bookshelf filled with dusty paperbacks.  Sam stands over by the window, arms folded over her chest and shoulders slumped, a newer and neater bandage stark against the soft warmth of her skin, and Alex holds her place by the door to the bedroom, mirroring her posture and staring at the back of her head. 

“You’re awake.”  Sam doesn’t turn around, doesn’t move save for the way her chin dips momentarily, and her voice doesn’t leave room as if she’s asking.  “You knocked out right after we got here. Adrenaline crash. I thought it was best to let you sleep.”

Alex doesn’t move until a soft sniff sounds from Sam’s spot by the window, hands moving to settle in her pockets and jaw set tight.

“Where’s your kid?”

Sam still doesn’t turn from the window, uninjured shoulder lifting in something approximating a shrug.  “She’s safe, with someone I trust to take care of her if--” She cuts herself off with a bitter laugh and a shake of her head.  “She was never supposed to need protection like this. I’m a goddamned accountant.”

“Accountant tracking down a drug lord,” Alex points out.

“Yeah, well,” Sam says bitterly.  “I sure managed to screw that up on multiple levels.”

Alex leans against the wall, head dropping back, and lets out a slow breath.  “Maybe,” she says after a long moment. “But your asshole boss said you’re the only person who’s managed to actually find anything that might stick on this Sinclair lady, so maybe not.”

“I’m pretty sure the fact that I ruined your life and your sister’s life and now, conveniently, also my own kid’s in the process negates any positive impact here.”  Sam finally turns around, arms still tight over her stomach. “I never wanted it to happen like this.”

“Yeah,” Alex says eventually.  “I get that.” She pushes off the wall to stand up straight, pauses, moves to halve the distance between them.  “I’m still pissed at you. But I get why you did it.”

“I’m not--” Sam starts.  “I was never supposed to go undercover.  I didn’t want to. Don’t have the stomach for it.”

“You were good at it,” Alex says with a thin smile.  “Had me completely fooled.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t lying most of the time,” Sam mumbles.  She shrugs and then winces when it pulls at her damaged shoulder, her grimace only barely visible in the dark.  She offers a smile, grim and bitter and not at all reminiscent of the bright grin she’d had when undercover--

Alex shakes her head against the hunt for familiarity, the one she can’t ever seem to give up, and clears her throat sharply.  “Does it really matter?”

“Probably not.”  Sam’s head lolls back against the wall, cradling her injured arm against her chest, and Alex’s stomach turns over on itself.  “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep wondering what would have happened if--”

“Don’t,” Alex snaps out, hands fisting in her pockets.  “Just--don’t. Please.”

Sam falls quiet, watching from the other side of the room, weighted down with exhaustion and guilt so palpable Alex can almost taste it.  Her hands clench tighter in her pockets, jaw set tight, because Sam lied, because Sam brought this down on Alex’s family-- even if she didn’t, technically, a nagging irritation in the back of her head reminds her, because it was Alex who got mixed up in this in the first place-- because Sam is an FBI agent and not the kind-hearted woman with a crappy car and a bright smile that had worked its way into Alex’s heart--

“Fuck,” Alex mumbles.  Her feet carry her across the space between them before Sam can say anything and she shoves her hard, kisses her harder.  Sam’s whole body shudders between Alex and the wall, a gasp ripping out of her when her injured shoulder hits the wall, but Alex just pushes forward, hands and lips moving hard and fast.  

It’s nothing like the series of easy-almosts they’d shared when Sam had been undercover, hesitant and careful, two people ostensibly starting something new and taking their time with each other.  Instead, it’s hard and violent, Alex’s hands gripping hard enough to bruise, teeth scraping and fingers yanking impatiently at Sam’s belt and shoving past it to pull a long groan out of her. Sam’s hands hold just as tight to her shoulders, moving with Alex’s and giving as good as she gets, one leg hiking up around Alex's hip and dragging her closer.  Alex bites down at the skin over her collarbone and fists one hand into the hair at the back of Sam's head while the other pushes harder, faster, reaching for something she can’t identify and settling instead for the way Sam feels around her and how she's falling apart because of Alex's anger surrounding her, Alex's fingers inside her, Alex's mouth against her neck.

It’s over too quickly, Alex’s hand still crammed down Sam’s pants and an angry bite mark blooming on Sam’s collarbone.

“Shit,” Alex gasps out, reclaiming her hand and nearly doubling over with nausea when Sam’s hips twitch and a cry escapes her lips.  “I shouldn’t-- that was--God, I’m so sorry--” She rears back, feet stumbling over each other, not knowing where to put her hands or where to look that isn’t Sam and her bruised lips, her heavy breaths.

“It’s okay,” Sam says quietly.  She reaches out, hands gentle on Alex’s shoulders, guiding her around to swap their places.  She’s never seemed taller, somehow, mouth set in a firm line for a long moment before she kisses Alex, hesitant, careful, like something new and uncertain, hands curling around her neck and up into her hair. Alex’s hands fall to her hips in spite of herself because this is the Sam she knew, the gentle movement of her mouth with Alex’s familiar, pulling away and dropping down onto her knees--

“Wait, wait,” Alex mumbles, covering Sam’s hand at the waist of her pants with her own. “Don’t--you don’t have to--”

“I know I don’t have to,” Sam says.  “But just-- let me. Please. Let me do this.” 

It’s wrong, this, them, this whole situation where she’s just fucked Sam against the wall of a dusty safehouse, where Sam’s on her knees and looking up at Alex like this, maybe this, maybe putting herself out there for Alex to use and discard will be enough to earn her Alex’s forgiveness.  

“You don’t have to-- you don’t owe me this,” Alex manages to say, even as her entire body trembles under the warm brush of Sam’s breath on her stomach and she curls her hands into fists against the wall to keep from grabbing at Sam and pulling her closer, closer, as close as she can be.

Sam doesn’t say anything and instead pushes Alex’s hand away, careful, slow, leaving all the room in the world for Alex to stop her, and looks up at her, eyes dark and half of her face shadowed in the darkness of the safehouse living room, waiting for the nod Alex finally offers her.  

She’s slow where Alex had been frantic, gentle where she’d been violent.  Alex’s eyes slide shut and her head falls back against the wall, finger flexing against the wallpaper as Sam moves against her, slow and deliberate, hands soft at her straining hips, tentative, as if she’s waiting for Alex to shove her away.  

Instead, Alex’s hands make their way into Sam’s hair, firm but not pulling, and she drags her head off the wall enough to look down and meet Sam’s eyes, holding her gaze as long as she can before her whole body trembles and pulls tight under Sam’s tongue and her eyes slide shut again, holding too-tight at Sam’s hair and buckling at the waist with a strained cry, curling around the hold she has on the back of Sam’s head and the grip Sam keeps on her hips.

Her hands eventually untangle from Sam’s hair and she finds a way to slump back against the wall.  Sam sits back on her heels, hair a mess and one hand wiping at her mouth, looking thoroughly debauched but still hesitant, still worried, still tense, as if she’s waiting for Alex to throw her aside.  

“I’m sorry,” Sam says eventually.  

“Do you always apologize after you get someone off?” Alex mumbles, fumbling with her pants and sliding down to sit against the wall.  Her legs splay out on either side of Sam’s and she considers pulling them back, but at this point there’s not exactly any formality to hold onto between them, so she lets it happen, Sam’s knees pressed between her own.  

“Not for-- I mean, maybe for that,” Sam says, shoulders slumping and spine curving, her entire posture fading into something tired and overwhelmed, and Alex digs her fingers into her own thighs to keep from reaching for her.  “For lying, and putting you in danger, for putting Kara in danger. All of it.” 

Alex doesn’t say anything, teeth grinding together for long moments, reaching for something to say because her chest aches, deep under her sternum, at the way Sam’s holding onto her guilt, the way she’s leaned into Alex’s fury.  It hasn’t helped, being angry, holding onto something that twists in her stomach and pushes sharply against her chest at all hours.

“I’m tired of being angry at you,” Alex says suddenly, before she realizes it, but she follows it anyways because it’s true.  She’s tired, so tired, and everything in her is ready for something solid to hold onto until this is over. “I don’t know if I forgive you.  Not yet.” She sucks in a deep breath, carefully focusing on a spot past Sam’s ear instead of the way Sam looks like she’s suffocating in the face of Alex’s words.  “But I trust you. Because you’ll get us out of this. I do trust that.”

“I’ll fix it,” Sam says after a long moment.  “I promise.”

“Yeah.”  Alex smiles thinly and pushes up to her feet.  A second clicks past, and she offers a hand to Sam and pulls her up.  “You’re bleeding.” 

The bandage on Sam’s shoulder is half-loose, the tape ripped free and bloodstained, a matching smear on the ratty wallpaper behind them where Alex had slammed Sam into the wall.

“It’s fine.”  Sam winces anyways and it segues into a yawn that pulls her whole body tight.  

“Fine, be tough,” Alex says, rolling her eyes.  “But you at least need to sleep.” She grips Sam’s hand without meaning to and pulls her towards the bedroom, and Sam follows without protest, already half asleep.  “I’ll keep an eye on things out here.”

A protest builds in Sam’s eyes, even as she lets Alex pull her around and sit her down on the bed, hands soft on her shoulders as she pushes until Sam lays down.  

“Just for a bit,” Sam mumbles.  Alex settles a pillow under Sam’s injured arm to support it, an ache that has nothing to do with injuries or exhaustion spreading through her at the way Sam curls around the pillow and under the blankets Alex pulls over her.

Alex shuts the door softly behind her and wraps her arms around herself.  The air feels different on her skin, as if what they’d just done-- the way she’d fucked Sam against a wall, hard and cruel and selfish; the way Sam had let her and given as much as she could in response-- had changed the entire atmosphere.  The smear on the wall from Sam’s shoulder glares down at her and Alex shudders and ignores it, taking up the same watchful posture at the window Sam had held before.


	9. Chapter 9

Sam’s yanked out of sleep just before noon, the sun streaming through the small window in the bedroom, by Alex’s hand over her mouth, throwing her into a panic, and her fist is reared back to break Alex’s hold on her before she sees Alex’s wide eyes and the finger held to her lips.

“Someone’s here,” she says softly, tilting her head back towards the front of the house.  “Two cars, at least four people.”

“How did they find us?” Sam mumbles.  She sits up, wide awake and hand curling softly around Alex’s wrist for a brief comforting moment.  “Come on, get your shoes on, we have to get out of here.”

“Are you sure it’s not your team?”

“They would have contacted me first,” Sam says as she shoves her feet into her shoes and fumbles with her hair, trying to straighten the disarray from sleep and pull it back out of her face.  The bulletwound in her shoulder protest and she groans softly in spite of herself, drawing an uncertain look from Alex. 

“Come on,” she says again, grabbing Alex’s boots and shoving them into her chest.  “Go out the back door, stay low.”

“What about--”

“Just get to the car,” Sam mutters.  She shoves her feet into her shoes and produces her gun and the one she’d taken from Alex, pausing and weighing them in each hand.  With a sigh, she turns Alex’s gun around and offers it to her. “I assume you know how to use this and won’t shoot your foot off.”

“Promise I won’t,” Alex says, smirky and cocky for just a moment, and in spite of her exhaustion and adrenaline Sam’s chest finds the space to flutter with attraction at it.

“I’ll be right behind you,” Sam says, gesturing towards the door.  “Don’t pull the gun unless you have to.”

Alex nods, short and sharp, smirk fading away, and Sam pushes a hand onto her shoulder, guiding her towards the back door and looking back towards the front of the house.  The door creaks softly when Alex opens it, and Sam backs out after her, keeping the whole of the house in her view for as long as possible, until the door swings shut softly behind them.  On the other side, the sound of a boot slamming into the front door blasts out, and Sam turns around to shove Alex towards the car.

“Go, go, go,” she snaps, giving up on staying quiet.  She flings herself into the passenger seat and crams the keys into Alex’s hand.  The back door slams open as Alex starts the car and the muzzle of a gun appears before anything else with a flash and a crack, and Sam’s window shatters.  “Go!”

Sam fires a handful of shots out of the broken window as Alex blasts out of the driveway, skidding past the two parked cars and the one man left standing watch over them; he scrambles for his gun and fires and hits the passenger door with a spray of bullets as they fly past.  

“We need to get off the road,” Sam says, petering off into a groan because pieces of safety glass are sticking into the skin of her forearm.

“They won’t catch us if we keep moving,” Alex counters.

“Alex--”

“Sam,” Alex says firmly.  “I grew up stealing cars. They aren’t going to catch us.”  She flings the car around a corner and nausea swoops in Sam’s stomach as the whole car groans and the wheels inside the turn nearly leave the ground.  Alex pushes the car hard, braking around corners at speed and putting distance between the cars chasing after them, and Sam slumps down in her seat when she realizes that Alex was right.  

“Show off,” she mutters, picking the glass out of her arm with a groan.

“If you’re not careful that whole arm is going to get torn up before we’re done with this, you know,” Alex says, calmly yanking on the handbrake and making an impossible last-minute turn onto the highway.  “Is there a first aid kit in here?”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s bleeding,” Alex says with a sigh.

“Doesn’t hurt.”  Sam shrugs and wipes at the smear of blood on her arm with a frown.  

“You don’t have to just tough shit out--”

“Alex,” Sam says quietly.  “I’m okay. I promise. It’s safety glass, it doesn’t do much damage.”  She pauses long enough to stare at Alex’s profile for a long moment, following the tense line of her jaw and the crease in her forehead to the tension in her forearms as she grips too tight at the steering wheel.  “Head back to LA, but we need to stop and find a phone on the way.”

“Who’re you going to call?”  

“Ghostbusters?” Sam offers, smiling weakly and then wider when Alex rolls her eyes.  “We need resources, and I know someone who can help.”

“I thought you said that there’s a leak.”

“We’re not going back to the FBI,” Sam say thinly.  

“What about Kara?”

“Going to call them first, don’t worry.”  Sam ejects the clip from her gun and inspects it, sighing and sliding it back home.  She leans over with a hand on Alex’s arm to lean her forward so she can reclaim the gun tucked into the back of her waistband to do the same, absolutely not focusing on the feel of Alex’s skin under her hand.

“You know,” Alex says half a minute later, not looking away from the street, avoiding the smooth way Sam handles the gun.  “I’m glad I decided to stop being angry so I don’t have to be pissed at myself for finding you attractive when you do things like that.”

“Yeah, well, you’re one to talk,” Sam mutters.  

“What?”

Sam rolls her eyes and gestures vaguely towards Alex.  “You’ve been walking around being hot since, like, the day I met you.  You  _ have _ to know what that whole sweaty greasemonkey with the ripped arms thing is like queer girl catnip.”

Alex’s ears flush red and Sam rolls her eyes, flopping back in her seat and regretting it instantly when her bandaged shoulder protests the impact.  

“There’s a truck stop,” Alex says, her voice squeaking slightly, and Sam smiles in spite of the ache in her shoulder because they may be on the run from a drug cartel with a traitor in the FBI and Sam’s arm may have been ripped open by bullets and glass shards in the last twelve hours and they may have had entirely stupid and entirely too good sex in a dirty safehouse, but for just a minute the tension between them falls away and settles back into the easy warmth they’d had so briefly.  “They probably have a phone.”

“I’m sure they do,” Sam says mildly.  She settles more comfortably into her seat and tilts her head back with a groan.  “And hopefully some advil.”

The truck stop has a nearly-defunct payphone and a surly attendant who barely blinks at the bloody bandage on Sam’s shoulder when she slaps a bottle of advil and a collection of water bottles and protein bars down onto the counter.  Outside, Alex stands tensely by the car, arms folded tight over her stomach and shoulders hunched under the lazy sunlight. Sam tosses one of the waters to her and wedges her way into the phone booth, dumping quarters in and punching in the phone number.

“Yeah?”

“Hey,” Sam says with a sigh at Jeff’s voice.  “It’s me.”

“Where are--”

“They found us in Anaheim,” Sam says quietly, casting a glance out towards Alex.  “We’re fine, on the move. Did they--”

“No,” Jeff hurries out.  “Nothing here. We’re fine.”  In the background, Kara’s voice sounds, sharp and worried.

“Okay.”  Tension leaks out of Sam’s body, her legs wavering under the relief that Kara and Jeff are okay.  “Okay. Tell Kara that Alex is okay. I’m going to send someone to get you, okay? The safehouses aren’t going to work out.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Sam says, slumping against the wall of the phone booth.  

“How will I know they’re who you sent?”

“You got drunk at the holiday party last year and told me that your favorite stuffed animal as a kid was named--”

“Okay!” Jeff says loudly, and Sam smiles into the cramped phone booth.  “Got it.”

“Stay safe, okay?”

“You too, boss.”

Sam hangs up and takes a deep breath, immediately feeding another quarter in and dialing before she can hesitate.

“Hello?”

“Lena, hey,” Sam says.  “It’s me.”

“Are you okay?” Lena says, quiet and calm, and Sam leans tiredly against the payphone, cradling her head in her free hand.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Sam says.  “Is--”

“She’s okay,” Lena says firmly.  “She’s here with me. I’m working from home and she’s watching Disney movies all day.”

“Okay,” Sam says, eyes sliding shut.  “I hate to ask, but I need more help.”

“Honestly, Sam, at this point I’d hope you realized you don’t have to  _ ask _ ,” Lena says.  “You know I consider you a friend, and even if I didn’t, I want you to close this case as much as anyone does.”

Sam breathes slowly, willing herself not to collapse with exhaustion and relief and the knowledge that even when everything is turned upside down, she can always count on Lena Luthor.

“What can I do?”

“Two things.”  Sam squeezes her eyes shut and takes a deep breath.  “I need someone you trust to go get Kara Danvers and one of my agents from a safehouse.  The one Alex and I were at was compromised, so theirs might be, too. And then we all need a place to stay.  Preferably off the grid and as secure as you can get.”

“Okay,” Lena says, short and crisp.  “I can do that. Do you want me to get Ruby--”

“No,” Sam says, and her voice cracks and shakes.  “No, I-- please keep her with you. I want her safe and right now we’re not safe to be around.”  She pulls in a wavering breath and lets it out. “Can you tell her I love her, though?”

“Of course,” Lena says softly, and Sam sniffs and swipes at her nose.  Lena recites an address and apartment number and door code, and Sam repeats it back to her twice, nodding with her eyes still shut as she commits it to memory.  “What else can I do?”

“Just keep her safe.”  Sam rattles off the address and a safeword and pulls in another shaking breath.  “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Lena says.  “Be careful.”

“Always am,” Sam says, forcing fake confidence into her voice.  “You take care, too.”

She hangs up before she can beg Lena to put Ruby on the phone and leans her forehead against the payphone, pulling in deep shaking breaths.  A knock sounds softly on the outside of the payphone, and she takes a deep breath and stands up straighter, slipping out of the booth to face Alex and the anxiety that's worked its way back into the tension in her jaw and the way her fingers pull at each other.

“They’re fine,” she says quietly.  “No one’s showed up there. I have someone going to pick them up and we’re going somewhere new.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere safe,” Sam says grimly.  “I’ll drive for a while, okay?” She plucks the keys out of Alex’s hands and shakes her head when Alex opens her mouth to question her, lips pressed into a firm line. 

“Wait,” Alex says, one hand curling around Sam’s wrist. Her fingers slide down to wrap around Sam’s palm and she pulls her gently over to lean against the side of the car and retrieving a dusty box of bandaids from the glove compartment.  She works silently at resecuring the loosened bandage on Sam’s shoulder, fingers gentle against her skin as she folds it back over itself and tapes it down. “Okay.”

Sam pulls in a deep breath and nods, not ready to meet Alex’s dark eyes, and drops down into the car.  Alex doesn’t say anything else, and Sam pulls back onto the highway and sets off towards downtown Los Angeles.

 

* * *

By the time they make it into the city it's almost rush hour, gridlock slowing the last few blocks to a crawl that leaves Sam glowering at the cars in front of them nonstop.

“Are you sure this is the right place?”  Alex leans forward and cranes her head back, staring up through the windshield at the towering building in front of them, surrounded by smaller skyscrapers and a busy street, as Sam pulls into an underground garage a block away.

“Seems about right,” Sam says drily, rolling her eyes at Lena’s melodrama.  “Come on, let’s get inside.” She turns the engine off and tucks her gun back into her waistband, pulling her shirt and jacket down over it and climbing out of the car as Alex does the same.  Downtown is busy as always, full of bustling people and busy tours, and Sam reaches out automatically to latch onto Alex’s hand, keeping her close as they hurry down the sidewalk and skirt around crowds.   

The lobby is empty save for a coded elevator waiting on the far side and unsubtle cameras that whir softly and follow their movements, and Alex glares up at them sullenly. The keypad for the elevator lights up as they approach, and Sam punches in the code with tired fingers.  The elevator opens immediately and she pulls Alex in, slumping to rest against one wall as the doors slide shut behind them and the elevator takes off towards the penthouse. 

“Is your mysterious benefactor a Bond villain?”

“Possibly,” Sam says with a shrug, cracking a smile.  “A trustworthy one, at the very least.”

“Exactly how sure are you--”

The elevator stops and the doors slide open smoothly, and Kara launches in to tackle Alex with a hug.

“Pretty sure,” Sam says, sliding past them and into the apartment that takes up the whole floor.  Jeff’s sprawled on the couch, a pillow over his eyes, and lifts it enough to wave at her tiredly before dropping it back down.  

Sam paces slowly through the apartment, checking bedrooms and balconies and fully-stocked closets and circling back eventually to the kitchen, also filled with food.  “I love you, Lena Luthor,” she mutters into one of the cabinets as she claims a bottle of whiskey and a glass for a healthy pour.

“How do you know about this place?” Kara takes a bite out of an apple from the bowl on the counter and tosses an orange to Alex.  

“She’s friends with a Bond villain,” Alex says flatly as she peels the orange, raising an eyebrow at Sam and the way she rolls her eyes.

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

“Yeah,” Sam says tiredly.  “I’m sure.” She drains the last of the whiskey and pours another, until it’s nearly overflowing.  “Try to get some rest, okay? I’m going to shower and then we’ll make a game plan.”

She brushes past Kara on her way out of the kitchen with her whiskey, pausing only to grip Jeff’s shoulder for a split second before disappearing into one of the bedrooms and shutting the door behind her with a sigh.  Her whole body aches with exhaustion and damage from the last day, and she toes out of her shoes and socks with a groan and lets her feet sink into the plush carpet. The closets are filled with clothes still tagged and in boxes, the dressers stuffed neatly with still-packaged sets of underwear and socks.  

“God, you’re such a prepper,” Sam mumbles even as she gathers up clothes to wear and dumps them on the bed.  The bathroom is so clean it’s practically sterile, all white tile and stainless steel, the shower cavernous and welcoming.  She turns on the hot water and then peels her jacket off with a grunt, wincing when the bandage held loosely by dirty tape finally gives up and peels off of the bullet wound on her shoulder.  The tank top she’d put on under her shirt yesterday morning before taking Ruby to school like any other day, the one that’s had a faded stain from grape juice Ruby spilled on it for two years, is ruined by the splattered bloodstains all down one side.  

The door to the bedroom opens quietly, and Sam’s shoulders stiffen.  Alex appears in the doorway to the bathroom, a first aid kit in hand, and stands quietly until Sam sighs and nods.  She claims the glass of whiskey from the counter and takes a long sip, waiting until Sam lean against the counter and pulls her hair over her other shoulder, presenting the wound for Alex to clean.  Neither of them says anything as Alex silently cracks the kit open and sorts through it, coming up with rubbing alcohol and gauze. Her head falls back and air whistles out past her teeth when Alex dabs at the graze with an alcohol-soaked piece of gauze, teeth grinding together.  She stares up at the ceiling instead of the sharp line of Alex’s jaw and the way her hair falls into her eyes and lets Alex move her arm around, cleaning the cuts and scrapes from the shattered car window as well, hands gentle and careful against her skin.

“Bandage it again after you shower,” Alex says softly as she dumps the used gauze into the trash can. 

Sam swallows the rest of the whiskey and straightens from the counter, hand falling soft to Alex's hips and turning to switch places, guiding Alex to sit on the counter and taking her bandaged elbow gently in her hands.  Alex lets out a barely audible grunt as the tape’s pulled from her skin and Sam pours rubbing alcohol onto a fresh piece of gauze and presses it carefully to the ripped skin of Alex's elbow, over and over until it's disinfected.

Alex finally breathes, letting out a heavy breath, and slides out from between Sam and the counter to leave, and Sam reaches out to lock a hand around her wrist without meaning to.  Alex pauses mid-step and looks back at her, biting down on the corner of her lip and waiting for Sam to breathe, move, speak at all to the way that their lives have turned upside down, to how her whole body hurts with fatigue and frustration at the position they’re in, to the fact that in the middle of this disaster that’s sent them into hiding the only thing Sam wants as much as keeping her daughter safe is to hold onto Alex and never let go.

She finally moves, turning from the counter and pulling smoothly until Alex turns into the movement and steps close to her, hands falling to Sam’s hips automatically.  Sam reaches past her with her free hand and pushes at the open bathroom door until it swings shut, and Alex pulls at the hem of Sam’s shirt, lifting until Sam pulls it over her head and then does as much to Alex until her hands skirt along the skin of Alex’s ribcage and turn them around, stripping clothes away and walking her backwards into the oversized shower until her back presses against the wall and, finally, leaning forward to kiss her.

Steam that had been leaking out into the bedroom starts to build up in the bathroom instead and, hot water beating against her skin and drawing tension out of her limbs, Sam kisses Alex slow and desperate, pressing forward with her lips and hands and hips, until Alex shudders in her arms and slumps against the cooler tiles behind her and breathes heavily, Sam’s forehead pressed tiredly against hers.


End file.
